IRANIAN ACTIVISTS REPORT NEW POISONING CASES AT GIRLS’ SCHOOLS

Mon 01 May 2023:

In Iran, new cases of poisoning at girls’ schools have been recorded, according to activists with the human rights group Hengaw, based in Norway.

Cases were reported in the capital Tehran and the Kurdistan region, which has been rocked by protests in recent months. In the hometown of protest icon Jina Mahsa Amini, security forces also reportedly used violence against schoolgirls.

There was initially no official information on the cases.

The incidents have been causing unrest in the country for around five months. Throughout the country, schoolgirls have been treated in hospitals, with doctors speaking of gas poisoning.

Thousands of suspected cases have been officially registered by the authorities. Some parents have stopped letting their children go to school out of concern for their safety.

The human rights organization Amnesty International called it a “coordinated campaign.”

On Friday, Iran’s intelligence service published a final report on the poisonings, concluding that there is no organized network of perpetrators.

The secret service argues that the cases are a matter of nationwide mass hysteria. Its report states that analyses of samples mainly found traces of pepper spray or stink bombs, as opposed to more serious toxic substances.

Parents and other relatives accused the authorities of failing their children.

Protests after the death of Iranian Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini in police detention sparked Tehran’s greatest political crisis in decades last autumn. According to critics, the poisonings are retaliation for the protests.