Lagatar24 Desk
Tehran, Feb 27: An Iranian deputy minister on Sunday said “some people” were poisoning schoolgirls in the holy city of Qom with the aim of shutting down education for girls, state media reported.
Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls mainly in Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospital treatment.
On Sunday the deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, implicitly confirmed the poisonings had been deliberate.
Iran's deputy health minister has admitted that the serial poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran has been "deliberate".
"After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls' schools, to be closed." pic.twitter.com/5CkiqCBm3D— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) February 26, 2023
“After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” the IRNA state news agency quoted Panahi as saying.
He did not elaborate. So far, there have been no arrests linked to the poisonings.
On February 14, parents of students who had been ill had gathered outside the city’s governorate to “demand an explanation” from the authorities, IRNA reported.
The next day government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said the intelligence and education ministries were trying to find the cause of the poisonings.
Last week, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri ordered a judicial probe into the incidents.
The poisonings come as Iran has been rocked by protests since the December 16 death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini for an alleged violation of country’s strict dress code for women.
In Iran, the revolution is being led by women and girls. However, authorities continue their crackdown, now targeting schoolgirls. A spate of mass illnesses was first reported among the students in the holy city Qom, south of the capital Tehran. Subsequently, girls from neighbouring cities also fell sick. If Iran’s deputy health minister is to be believed, they were poisoned using “chemical compounds”.
After the girls felt ill, dozens were admitted to hospitals for treatment. This meant, they would have to skip school and that is exactly what some extremists want.
Reports in local media say this could be the work of religious zealots who want to prevent girls from attending school.
The “poisoning” started in late November, amid unprecedented protests against Iran’s regime over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. She was detained for wearing the hijab “inappropriately”. The authorities responded with force, targeting young girls who participated in the stir, leading to more deaths.
Hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls mainly in Qom, according to a report by AFP.
The poisoning cases were first reported from a secondary school in Qam in November. At least 14 schools have been targeted across four cities including Tehran, the northwestern city of Ardebil, and the western city of Boroujerd, Bloomberg reports, quoting the newspaper Etemad.
The latest incident was reported on 22 February from Qom. Fifteen schoolgirls were hospitalised. They are now stable and under observation, according to local media.
Majid Monemi, the deputy governor of Lorestan, said on Sunday that 50 girl students of a high school in Borujerd, western Iran, were poisoned again.
Since then hundreds of students have taken ill, complaining of similar symptoms in public schools in the country, which are segregated by gender.
Qom, where the first poisoning was reported is a deeply conservative and religious city that’s home to Iran’s clergy and theological seminaries where most of the country’s leaders and presidents have studied, reports Bloomberg.
