Suspected schoolgirl poisoning attacks rattle the nation
Over the past three months, hundreds of young girls attending different schools in Iran have become overpowered by what are believed to be noxious fumes wafting into their classrooms, with some ending up weakened on hospital beds.
Officials in Iran’s theocracy initially dismissed these incidents but now describe them as intentional attacks involving some 30 schools identified in local media reports, with some speculating they could be aimed at trying to close schools for girls in this country of more than 80 million people.
The reported attacks come at a sensitive time for Iran, which has faced months of protests after the September death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country’s morality police.
The authorities have not named suspects, but the attacks have raised fears that other girls could be poisoned apparently just for seeking an education — something that’s never been challenged before in the more than 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran itself also has been calling on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to have girls and women return to school.
The first cases emerged in late November in Qom, 80 miles southwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran. There, in a heartland of Shiite theologians and pilgrims, students at the Noor Yazdanshahr Conservatory fell ill in November. They then fell ill again in December. Other cases followed, with children complaining about headaches, heart palpitations, feeling lethargic or otherwise unable to move. Some described smelling tangerines, chlorine or cleaning agents.
The schools affected at first only taught young women, fueling suspicion it wasn’t accidental. At least one case followed in Tehran, with others in Qom and Boroujerd. At least one boys’ school has been targeted as well.
Slowly, officials began taking the claims seriously. Iran’s prosecutor-general ordered an investigation, saying “there are possibilities of deliberate criminal acts.” Iran’s Intelligence Ministry reportedly investigated as well. On Sunday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency filed multiple stories with officials acknowledging the scope of the crisis.
“After several poisonings of students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” IRNA quoted Younes Panahi, a deputy health minister, as saying.
Ali Reza Monadi, a parliament member who sits on its education committee, described the poisonings as “intentional.”
The ”existence of the devil’s will to prevent girls from education is a serious danger, and it is considered a very bad news,” he said, according to IRNA. “We have to try to find roots” of this.