Reports emerged that hundreds of schoolgirls had been poisoned across Iran in recent months. The attacks on female students, called an act of ‘biological terrorism’, are thought to be retaliation for protests against hijabs in the country.
Repression against young people and women continues in Iran. In November, it was revealed that 18 female students from Nur Technical High School in Qom were hospitalised with symptoms of poisoning.
Following the incident in Qom, it is estimated that more than 1000 students were poisoned in Loristan, Tehran, Ardabil, Kermanshah, Simnan, Mazenderan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Elborz and Rezavi Khorasan provinces in the same way in three months.
Deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi also acknowledged that the attacks may have been intended to prevent girls from going to school at a news conference on Sunday, according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. “What is clear is that both in Qom and Borujerd, it is a deliberate issue,” he said, adding that a special committee has been appointed to investigate the poisonings.
Panahi said the girls had been poisoned by chemicals that “are not military grade and are publicly available”. “The pupils do not need any invasive treatment and it’s necessary to maintain calm,” he added.
The authorities in denial
As evidence of the poisonings mounted last year, Iran’s Education Minister Youssef Nouri originally dismissed the reports as “rumors” and he claimed that the hospitalised students had chronic illnesses.
The poisoned girls have reported the smell of tangerine or rotten fish before falling ill.
The comments of one schoolgirl, who says she has been poisoned twice, at the meeting with Qom’s governor earlier this month highlighted how vague and misleading some of the statements from the authorities have been.
“They [officials] tell us: ‘All is good, we’ve done our investigation.’ But when my father asked at my school, they told him: ‘Sorry, the CCTV has been down for a week and we can’t investigate this,'” she said.
“And when I was poisoned for the second time on Sunday, the school principal said: ‘She has a heart condition, that’s why she is hospitalised.’ But I don’t have any heart condition!”
Speaking to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, a doctor who specialises in the treatment of poisoning victims said: “With the data that’s available, the most probable cause of this poisoning could be a weak organophosphate agent. Even if some of the poisoned pupils show a sign of severe sweating, excess salivation, vomiting, intestinal hypermotility and diarrhoea, then the attack was done using this agent.”
The doctor said they believed the motive was to “scare the protesters by using extremist groups [radical Islamists] inside and outside the country.”
Is it a payback?
Since September, the clerical establishment has been challenged by the mass protests that erupted after the death in custody of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who was detained by morality police for allegedly failing to wear her headscarf “properly”.
Some Iranians have speculated that if the schoolgirls are being poisoned as “payback” for their role in the unrest. Social media was flooded with videos showing schoolgirls ripping off their headscarves and chanting anti-establishment slogans.
Masih Alinejad, an Iranian human rights activist based in New York, told the Guardian: “In my opinion, this chemical attack is revenge by the Islamic Republic against the brave women who [rejected] the mandatory hijab and shook the ‘Berlin Wall’ of [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei.
“As the Islamic State Iranian regime hates girls and women, I call on women across the globe – especially schoolgirls – to be the voice of Iranian students and call on the leaders of democratic countries to condemn this series of poisonings and isolate Khamenei’s regime,” she said.
“I call this biological terrorism, and it should be investigated by the UN. We need an outside organisation to investigate as soon as possible.”
Sources: BBC, TIME, Guardian