Tehran

• Since November, nearly 700 girls have been poisoned by toxic gas in Iran.
• At least 194 girls are said to have been poisoned in the last week at four schools.
• Some parents claim their children were sick for weeks following the poisoning.

Since November, nearly 700 girls have been poisoned by toxic gas in Iran, in what many believe is a deliberate attempt to force their schools to close.

Although no girls have died, dozens have experienced respiratory issues, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue.

“It became evident that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed down,” the deputy health minister said on Sunday.

However, he later stated that his remarks were misconstrued.

Last week, the prosecutor general announced the launch of a criminal investigation. However, he said that the available information only indicated “the possibility of criminal and premeditated acts”.

Meanwhile, public dissatisfaction is growing.

On November 30, 18 students from the Nour Technical School in the religious city of Qom were poisoned and taken to the hospital.

Since then, more than ten girls’ schools in the surrounding province have been targeted.

At least 194 girls are said to have been poisoned in the last week at four schools in the western province of Lorestan’s Borujerd.

On Tuesday, 37 more students were poisoned at the Khayyam Girls’ School in Pardis, near Tehran.

Before becoming ill, the poisoned girls reported smelling tangerine or rotten fish.

At least 100 people protested outside the governor’s office in Qom earlier this month.

“You are obliged to ensure my children’s safety! I have two daughters,” one father shouted in a video widely shared on social media. “Two daughters… and all I can do is not let them go to school.”

“This is a war!” declared a woman. “They are doing this in a girls’ high school in Qom to force us to sit at home. They want girls to stay at home.”

Some parents claim their children were sick for weeks following the poisoning.

Another hospital video shows a teenage girl lying dazed on a bed, her mother beside her.

“Dear mothers, I’m a mother and my child is in a hospital bed and her limbs are weak,” says the distraught mother. “I pinch her but she doesn’t feel anything. Please don’t send your children to school.”

Heartland of religion

Deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi stated at a press conference on Sunday that 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.

Dr Panahi’s comment that it was “evident that some people wanted all schools… to be closed down” appeared to confirm the government believed the poisonings were premeditated.

His subsequent denial indicated disagreements among officials about how to deal with public outrage when no suspects have been identified.

The poisonings have been concentrated in Qom, a city that is home to important Shia Muslim shrines as well as the religious leadership that serves as the Islamic Republic’s backbone.

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 believe the schoolgirls are being poisoned as “retaliation” for their role in the unrest. Videos of schoolgirls ripping off their headscarves and chanting anti-establishment slogans flooded social media.

Others believe the poisonings were carried out by hardliners seeking to “copy” the Taliban in Afghanistan and the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria by terrorising parents into not sending their daughters to school.

“Has Boko Haram come to Iran?” former Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi asked in an Instagram post.

The reformist politician also warned that “extremists will interpret the boundaries of government and religion in their favour”.

Iran’s leaders have traditionally dismissed criticism of its gender restrictions, such as the mandatory headscarf, and instead boasted about the number of women attending university. College, on the other hand, is a pipe dream for young girls who do not complete high school.

The comments of one schoolgirl, who claims to have been poisoned twice, during a meeting with Qom’s governor earlier this month highlighted how ambiguous and misleading some of the authorities’ statements 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!”

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