Hundreds of Schoolgirls Fall Sick in Iran, and Officials Suspect Poisoning

Tons of of schoolgirls in Iran have been hospitalized in over 10 cities after falling sick with respiratory, cardiac and neurological signs, and senior officers mentioned they could have been intentionally poisoned.

Inside Minister Ahmad Vahidi mentioned at a information convention on Wednesday that the motive behind what some officers known as faculty assaults remained unclear and that no arrests had been made. However the authorities held an emergency assembly on Wednesday with officers from the well being and schooling ministries, he mentioned, and groups from the Intelligence Ministry and safety forces started an investigation.

“The subject of the poisoning of our expensive ones was mentioned,” Mr. Vahidi mentioned, in keeping with a video of his feedback carried by state information media. He attributed a number of the women’ signs to emphasize and anxiousness and blamed Iran’s enemies and overseas information retailers for inflicting public alarm.

The primary stories of ladies’ falling sick emerged three months in the past within the non secular metropolis of Qom, which is about 80 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran. College students reported smelling mysterious odors like tangerine and chlorides and have been hospitalized after having problem respiratory and experiencing coronary heart palpitations, nausea and numbness of their limbs.

By Wednesday, the variety of college students affected had risen to greater than 800.

Alireza Monadi, a lawmaker and the pinnacle of Parliament’s schooling committee, mentioned on Tuesday that the colleges had been intentionally attacked and that 30 toxicologists within the Well being Ministry had recognized the toxins present in faculties as nitrogen gasoline.

Mr. Monadi and the deputy well being minister, Younes Panahi, mentioned the motive gave the impression to be to stop women from attending faculties, elevating alarm concerning the attainable infiltration of Islamic extremist teams.

“Poisoning feminine college students deliberately could be very dangerous information,” Mr. Monadi mentioned, in keeping with official information stories in Iran. “The truth that a gaggle of individuals wished to ban younger women from attending faculty is alarming. We’ve got to search out the roots of it.”

The suspected poisonings have rattled Iranians as a result of women’ schooling beneath the Islamic Republic has not been contested or challenged for the previous 4 many years. Girls make up a majority of Iran’s college college students and almost half of the work power, they usually have a sturdy presence in civil society, the place they work for higher rights regardless of arrests and intimidations.

Girls and women have additionally led the current protests demanding an finish to the Islamic Republic, eradicating their obligatory hijabs, tearing the images of officers and chanting, “Demise to the dictator.”

Rights activists mentioned the causes of the scholars’ sudden diseases may embrace punishment for civil disobedience, the prevention of schooling or sowing concern.

“These seem like critical coordinated assaults to create concern among the many women and their households within the context of ladies’ partaking within the protests and being penalized for it,” mentioned Tara Sepehri Far, an Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It’s including to the collective trauma and anxiousness in Iran.”

The stories of tons of of scholars falling sick throughout Iran have surged up to now few days, in keeping with native information stories, officers and rights activists. The union representing lecturers in Iran mentioned on Wednesday that 26 faculties had been focused, together with not less than one elementary faculty, with college students exhibiting signs of poisonous poisoning.

Movies circulating extensively on-line and printed by Iranian information media present ambulances dashing to colleges, together with women collapsing to the bottom, gasping for air and mendacity on beds in hospital emergency rooms.

Teams of offended and anxious mother and father have gathered outdoors faculties, demanding solutions. In a single case, movies confirmed safety forces in plain garments beating and attacking a screaming mom outdoors a faculty in Tehran.

In one other video, a girl is seen standing outdoors a faculty in Kermanshah. She says that, first, there was the sound of an explosion, and that then the principal introduced that college students have been feeling sick, which was adopted by ambulance sirens. Within the footage, two feminine college students say their classmates fainted, they usually specific anxiousness concerning the risk that their associates will die.

Many peculiar Iranians blamed the conservative authorities and its safety forces for the sick circumstances on the faculties and criticized them for not taking any motion sooner.

After months throughout which the federal government dismissed the circumstances, the rise within the variety of sick schoolgirls may not be ignored. President Ibrahim Raisi on Wednesday appointed the Inside Ministry to supervise the investigations.

Then, on Wednesday, circumstances emerged in 17 extra faculties, and 200 schoolgirls fell ailing in Ardabil, in keeping with state media stories.

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.