Intoods have been reported in several hundred schools welcoming girls. This series of events is perceived as a “revenge” of the regime, in reaction to the uprising of youth following the death of Mahsa Amini.
by Ghazal Golshiri
Since Saturday, March 4, day marking the start of the week in Iran, standard poisonings in the vast majority of schools reserved for girls have multiplied at a disturbing speed. During the day of Sunday, more than 200 elementary schools, colleges and high schools, across the country, were the target of poisoning of suspicious origin. It is impossible to assess the number of young girls who have been transported to hospital, and the number of victims in critical condition. The latter complain of breathing difficulties, nausea and headache. These poisoning arises while Iran is crossed by an unprecedented uprising since the death of a young woman, in September 2022, at the end of her police custody for her “not appropriate” outfit.
The poisonings began at the end of November 2022 in the religious city of Qom, before being observed in several parts of the country. The managers of these acts, which occurred in Tehran, Racht (North), Machhad (northeast), Bandar-E Abbas (South), Kermanshah (west), in particular, have still not been identified. Adding to the concern and indignation of the population, the Iranian authorities, instead of acting, denounce the action of supposed “enemies of Iran”, or have this wave to the young girls who are victims, under the pretext that they would thus try to create disorder in their establishments. In recent months, young Iranian women have been on the front line of demonstrations against the regime. Many videos and images have been published showing them in the process of burning the portrait of the supreme guide, Ali Khamenei, and their scarf, compulsory in Iran.
“The dictator is angry”
A large number of citizens considers that power is actually at the origin of these poisonings. And anger lights up again across the country. During the weekend, parents met in certain cities before government centers to protest the inaction of the authorities. In Racht, the police dispersed the angry crowd, gathered in front of the city’s education department, pulling tear gas. Arrests have been reported in several cities in the country, sometimes among the teenagers. Some of these scenes have been filmed and published on social networks.
Some Iranian newspapers try to cover events, not without difficulty, journalists with limited room for maneuver. One of them, Seyyed Ali for Tabatabai, working in Qom for a local information site and having been the first to make the poisoning in his city public, was arrested on March 5. It is still not clear if the symptoms affecting the victims disappear over time. In Qom, a father indicated that two weeks after being exposed to a toxic product, his daughter still could not walk without walker and suffered from vision and dizziness, according to Iranian information sites.
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