New cases of poisoning of girls were recorded today, Sunday (March 5, 2023), in several areas in IranWhere the mystery still surrounds the issue that arouses anger in the country. The poisoning of a number of female students was reported in two secondary schools for girls, in Abhar (west) and Ahwaz (southwest), and in an elementary school as well in Zanjan (west), according to the ISNA news agency, quoting local health officials.
The poisoning cases also affected female students in the schools of the holy city of Mashhad (northeast), Shiraz (south), and Isfahan (center), according to the Mehr and ILNA news agencies.
Hundreds of schoolgirls have been exposed to gas poisoning in dozens of education centers over the past three months, according to official figures.
In a statement published on Saturday evening, Interior Minister Ahmed Wahidi spoke of the discovery of “suspicious samples” during the “field research”, without revealing further details. On Friday, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi called on the interior and intelligence ministries to “thwart the enemy’s plot aimed at spreading fear and despair among the population.” In response to a question by Fars News Agency, Deputy Interior Minister Majid Marhamdi accused “the cause of girls’ poisoning” of wanting to “close schools” and “blaming the regime” in order to “revive dormant riots.” The official refers to the protest movement that has erupted in Iran since the death of the young woman Mahsa Amini On September 16, days after she was arrested by the “morality police” for violating the country’s strict dress code.
Marhamdi considered that a “small percentage” of the poisoning cases resulted from “deliberate actions,” but that a “large number” of the schoolgirls suffered from complications due to “anxiety and stress.”
Today, Sunday, the Iranian daily newspaper, Sharq, said that hundreds of Iranian artists have signed a petition calling for an investigation into a wave of poisoning cases among Iranian schoolgirls and students over the past three months. The newspaper said about 500 prominent artists had signed the petition. Parents took to the streets in response to the poisoning cases that led to the hospitalization of girls, and demanded clarification from the authorities amid growing anger. “The mass deliberate attacks on girls’ schools in the country is a new disaster that aims nothing more than to sow terror and increase the costs of the natural rights of girls in society,” the petition said, according to the newspaper. “We condemn this tragedy and demand that the perpetrators be arrested and punished,” the petition added.
“Suddenly, there was a very bad smell, I felt sick and fell to the ground,” a female student told TV. Also, Parasto, a student at Borujerd School (West), told the “Ham Mihan” newspaper that she was taken to the hospital after she “felt nausea and severe pain” in her chest. An emergency doctor at this city’s hospital said that “most of the female students” show “symptoms of headache, respiratory problems, lethargy, nausea and low blood pressure.”
