Wed 01 March 2023:
:Dozens of Iranian schoolgirls needed hospital treatment on Tuesday after another mysterious poisoning, a news agency reported, the latest in a spate of suspected attacks in the Islamic republic.
Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported in the past three months among schoolgirls mainly in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospitalisation.
A government official said on Sunday that the attacks were believed to be a deliberate attempt to force the closure of girls’ schools.
“Today (Tuesday) at noon, a number of students were poisoned at the Khayyam Girls’ School in the city of Pardis, Tehran province,” Tasnim news agency reported.
It said 35 students had been taken to hospital so far, adding to hundreds of cases of reported poisoning since November in at least two other cities including Qom.
On Sunday, students at a girls’ school in Borujerd were rushed to hospital after a poisoning incident, the fourth in the western city within the past week.
Parliament held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the suspected attacks.
The session was attended by Health Minister Bahram Eynollahi, the official IRNA news agency reported.
IRNA quoted speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as saying that both Qom and Borujerd were “dealing with student poisonings”.
The suspected poisonings were being investigated, Iran’s police chief told Tasnim news agency on Tuesday.
“Our priority is to find the origin of this case, and until then we will not judge whether it was intentional or not,” it quoted Ahmad-Reza Radan as saying.
– Nationwide outrage – “We have not yet arrested anyone in this case and we are identifying possible suspects,” the police chief added.
On Sunday the deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, said some people had been poisoned at a girls’ school in Qom, in a bid to shut down education for girls.
“After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” IRNA quoted him as saying at the time.
Panahi did not elaborate.
On February 14, parents of students who had been ill gathered outside Qom’s governorate to “demand an explanation
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