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The front page of Iranian financial newspaper Eqtesad-e Saramad on Wednesday.

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Eqtesad-e Saramad

Iranian journalists have questioned Iran’s official statistics, an unusual example of dissent under an authoritarian regime.

“Statistics: that is the question!” read the headline in Eqtesad-e Saramad on Wednesday. Iran has been accused of fabricating its statistics.

Even the official figures mark Iran as one of the worst-hit countries in the world, but some sources have suggested the true scale is even worse.

China, another authoritarian state, also faced a backlash for censoring social media posts about the outbreak and muzzling state critics.

Iran and China have both imposed vague, harsh laws about posting COVID-19 content online, allowing them to crack down on unfavorable commentary.

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A leading Iranian newspaper questioned the country’s coronavirus statistics, the latest example of how even the most authoritarian regimes are facing a domestic backlash.

“Statistics: that is the question!” read the headline in the financial newspaper Eqtesad-e Saramad on Wednesday, according to BBC Monitoring.