Some of the students among the 5,000 affected have been briefly hospitalized but none has so far been seriously affected.
The world with AFP
The case causes strong emotion in the country. Iran announced first arrests in the investigation into the series of poisoning that affected thousands of schoolgirls. These arrests come as parents of students mobilized to call on the authorities to act, more than three months after the first cases of poisoning.
The vice-minister of the interior, Majid Mirahmadi, appeared on Tuesday on state television to announce that “several people” had been arrested in five provinces “on” the basis of surveys carried out by the services of information “. He did not give details on their identity, the circumstances of their arrest and their alleged involvement.
The day before, the supreme Iranian guide, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had intervened to claim “severe sentences” against people who would be found guilty of these acts, which he described as “unforgivable crimes”. They “must be sentenced to severe sentences” and “there will be no amnesty” for them, warned the highest authority of Iran, which evoked this case for the first time.
In total, “more than 5,000 students have been affected” in “some 230 schools” located in 25 of the 31 provinces of the country since the end of November, Mohammad-Hassan Asafari, a member of the Commission D said on Tuesday on Tuesday. ‘Parliamentary survey responsible for shedding light on the causes of this wave of poisoning.
several hospitalized students
Each time, the phenomenon has been repeated: pupils of girls’ schools breathe “unpleasant” or “unknown” smells and then have symptoms such as nausea, shortness of breath and vertigo. “A very bad smell spread all of a sudden, I felt bad and came across the ground,” said a schoolgirl.
Some of the students are briefly hospitalized but none has so far been seriously affected. “No dangerous substance has been detected in those who have been examined in medical centers,” according to the Ministry of the Interior. Mr. Asafari clarified that “tests carried out to identify” these substances had not made it possible to determine them with certainty.
Sunday, Majid Mirahmadi had accused the “authors of the poisoning of girls” of wanting to “close the schools”, but also of “having the blame on the system” in order to “revive the extinct flame of the riots”. He thus referred to the protest movement launched in Iran by death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a young woman owned by the police of manners who reproached him for having violated the strict dress code imposing in particular for women the wearing of the veil. For his part, President Ebrahim Raïssi called on State services to “fail the conspiracy of the enemy” who “wants to sow fear, insecurity and despair”.