In his first public appearance in person for eight months, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chaired the daily meeting of the Covid-19 task force in Tehran on Saturday, October 24, with most of the country declared “severely affected” by the virus and with several cities in lockdown.

During the past eight months Khamenei, observing strict self-isolation rules, has taken part in a few meetings via video, but never sat in public close to anyone. At the Covid task force meeting, he sat within three meters of those closest to him, including Health Minister Saaed Namaki and President Hassan Rouhani. Others present sat within about a meter of each other.

Although the meeting was supposedly focused on the coronavirus pandemic, most of those in the hall were security officials. These included Revolutionary Guard and army commanders, the chief of the joint staff of the Iranian armed forces, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, Prosecutor-General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri and Defense Minister Amir Hatami.

Khamenei took the opportunity to criticize differences among officials. Pointing out that “criticism is different from denigrating, and that denigrating is religiously forbidden,” he stressed “the need for unity and harmony in the country.”

The Leader said that “certain recent measures to denigrate the administration and President Hassan Rouhani were wrongful,” an apparent reference to last week’s attempts to impeach Rouhani. The head of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee had even called on Khamenei to have Rouhani executed.   

Khamenei stressed that criticism was different to “insulting and denigrating, which is America’s way in debates,” an apparent reference to the presidential election debates between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden. “They have disgraced themselves in the world to the extent that a prominent American political figure said the world is watching the US in horror and scorn.”

Khamenei called on Iranians to instead respect the heads of Iran’s three branches of the government, Rouhani as president, Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeesi, and the Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf).

Khamenei also detected “terrible management” of Covid in the US and said Iran needed “new initiatives” to “overcome this pandemic, which is affecting people’s lives, health, security, and economy, with the best form of management.” He called the situation of coronavirus in Iran “regretful” while “a fall resurgence” in the virus was happening all around the world.

Khamenei offered five guidelines for combating the pandemic: launching an “operational base” to carry out the decisions of the national task force, officially known as the National Committee on Combating Covid-19; Health Ministry leadership in decision-making; control of borders and restrictions on unnecessary travel; raising awareness about the pandemic; and “strict punishment of offenders.”

He also called on officials to convince Iranians of the importance of social distancing, urged members of the task force to speak with one voice, and instructed government and charitable organizations – some of which operate under his own aegis - to consider support packages for those whose jobs and businesses have been lost during the pandemic.

Khamenei’s decision to put the Health Ministry in charge of will probably put Namaki in a better position against Rouhani and his aides Mahmoud Vaezi and Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, whose behavior has led the minister to complain in public on several occasions.

In a report presented to the meeting before Khamenei’s speech, Rouhani again accused Iranians of ignoring lockdown regulations. The president opposed the idea of lockdowns from the onset of the pandemic, and health officials have said his orders for the early reopening of schools and businesses made the pandemic worse.