DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A crisis of suspected poisonings targeting Iranian schoolgirls escalated Sunday as authorities acknowledged that more than 50 schools had been hit in a wave of possible cases. The poisonings spread more fear among parents as Iran faces months of unrest.
It remains unclear who or what is responsible since the alleged poisoning began in November in the Shiite holy city of Qom.. Reports now suggest that schools across 21 of Iran’s 30 provinces have seen suspected cases, with girls’ schools the site of almost all incidents.
The attacks raised fears that some girls might be poisoned, apparently just for going to school. Education for girls has not been challenged in the more than 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has called on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to allow girls and women to return to school and university.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said on Saturday, without elaborating, that investigators had recovered “suspicious samples” in the course of their investigations into the incidents, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. . He called for public calm, while also accusing “enemy media terrorism” of fueling further panic over the alleged poisoning.
However, it was not until the poisonings received international media attention that hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi announced an investigation into the incidents on Wednesday..
On Sunday, Raisi told the Cabinet, after a report read by Intelligence Minister Ismail Khatib, that the root of the poisonings must be exposed and dealt with. He described the alleged attacks as a “crime against humanity for creating anxiety among students and parents.”
Vahidi said at least 52 schools were affected by the suspected poisoning. Iranian media reports put the number of schools at more than 60. At least one boys’ school was reportedly affected.
Videos of angry parents and students in emergency rooms with IVs in their arms flooded social media. Understanding the crisis remains challenging, as nearly 100 journalists have been detained in Iran since protests began in September over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.. He was arrested by the country’s morality police and later died.
Security forces’ crackdown on protests has seen at least 530 people killed and 19,700 others jailed, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran.
Children affected by poisoning are reported to complain of headaches, heart palpitations, feeling weak or unable to move. Others describe the smell of tangerines, chlorine or cleaning agents.
Reports suggest that at least 400 students at the school have fallen ill since November. Vahidi, the interior minister, said in his statement that two girls remain in hospital due to underlying illnesses.
As more attacks were reported on Sunday, videos were posted on social media showing children complaining of pain in their legs, stomachs and dizziness. State media mainly called it “hysterical reactions.”
Since the outbreak, no one has been reported in critical condition and there have been no reports of death.
Attacks on women have occurred in the past in Iran, most recently with a wave of acid attacks in 2014 around the city of Isfahanat the time it was believed to be made by hard-liners who focused on women on how they dressed.
Speculation in Iran’s tightly controlled state media has focused on the possibility of exile groups or foreign powers being behind the poisonings. That too has been repeatedly attributed to recent protests without evidence. In recent days, Germany’s foreign minister, a White House official and others have called on Iran to do more to protect the girls — a concern Iran’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed as “crocodile tears.”
However, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said Iran “has continued to tolerate attacks against women and girls for months” amid recent protests.
“These killings took place in an environment where Iranian officials have no impunity for the harassment, assault, rape, torture and killing of women who peacefully express their freedom of religion or belief,” said the commission’s Sharon Kleinbaum said in a statement.
Suspicion in Iran has fallen on possible hard-liners for carrying out the suspected poisonings. Iranian journalists, including Jamileh Kadivar, a prominent former reformist lawmaker in Tehran’s Ettelaat newspaper, cited a purported communique from a group calling itself Fidayeen Velayat that allegedly said education of women was “considered forbidden” and threatened to “spread the poisoning of women. throughout Iran” if girls’ schools remained open.
Iranian officials do not recognize any group called Fidayeen Velayat, which roughly translates into English as “Devotees of the Guardianship.” However, Kadivar’s mention of the print threat comes as he remains influential within Iranian politics and has ties to its theocratic ruling class. The head of Ettelaat newspaper was also appointed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Kadivar wrote on Saturday that another possibility is “mass hysteria.” There have been previous cases of this in the past decades, most recently in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012. Then, the World Health Organization wrote about the so-called “mass psychogenic diseases” affecting hundreds of girls in schools across the country.
“Reports of foul odors preceding the onset of symptoms lend credence to the multiple poisoning theory,” the WHO wrote at the time.. “However, investigations into the causes of these outbreaks have provided no such evidence so far.”
Iran has not acknowledged the world health body’s request for help in its investigation. WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
However, Kadivar also noted that hard-liners in Iranian governments had previously carried out so-called “chain murders” of activists and others in the 1990s. He also mentioned the killings by Islamic vigilantes in 2002 in the city of Kerman, when one victim was stoned to death and others were tied up and thrown into a swimming pool, where they drowned. He described those vigilantes as members of the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
“The common denominator of all of them is their overthinking, intellectual stagnation and strict religious outlook that allows them to commit such violent actions,” Kadivar wrote.
