Revolutionary Guard claims UK diplomat poisoned schoolgirls

IRAN’s Revolutionary Guard yesterday accused the British ambassador in Tehran of being behind a spate of apparent “poisonings” of schoolgirls.

In the past three months, hundreds of mainly female students in several cities have been taken to hospital with symptoms including shortness of breath, nausea and tingling extremities.

Most have made a rapid recovery, but the number of reported incidents has increased sharply in the past week.

It is not clear who or what is behind them but the Iranian state has tried to point the finger at “foreign enemies”.

Mashregh News – a website run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – wrote: “The British ambassador in Iran has been directly involved in the poisoning of the girl students in our country.”

It claimed Simon Shercliff, the ambassador, “follows the instructions of the Churchill Club which is a secret

British foreign policy that uses students in carrying out their terrorist operations in many different ways”.

The Churchill Club was a group of Danish schoolboys who committed acts of sabotage against the occupying Germans during the Second World War.

In December, Iranian activists online proposed setting up a modern-day equivalent called the Shekari Club, named after Mohsen Shekari, a 23-yearold who was the first known person to be executed over the anti-hijab protests that swept the country.

Mashregh News added: “A review of the activities around the schools shows that the secret service of the enemy and its umbrella network is carrying out this project to test its effects in reigniting the street riots that have now subsided.”

The reports of poisonings have prompted a fresh crisis in Iran following months of protests after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while in police custody, accused of wearing her hijab incorrectly.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader, last week called the school incidents an “unforgivable crime”.

The Iranian opposition believes the state is behind the incidents, and is punishing schoolgirls for their role in the recent protests.

Abulfazl Ghadiani, a dissident politician, said: “It is a revenge by the despot Khamenei on the young women of Iran for their participation in the liberation movement of Women, Life, Freedom.”

Some commentators have suggested the “poisonings” could be down to a mass hysteria or psychogenic illness.

The FCDO declined to comment.

‘He follows instructions of the Churchill Club, a secret British foreign policy that uses students’