Protesters accuses Iran of muting victims of poisoning attacks

• Iran has seen an increase in suspected poisoning attacks at girls’ schools.
• With hundreds of schoolgirls impacted.
• Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called it an “unforgivable crime”.

Iran has seen an increase in suspected poisoning attacks at girls’ schools around the nation in recent days.

Medical professionals and teachers have accused government officials of trying to hush the victims.

Since late November, Iran has experienced a spate of alleged poisoning attacks, nearly exclusively at girls’ institutions.

There have been hundreds of schoolgirls impacted by the ailments, several of them have been hospitalized.

Many incidences were recorded at numerous schools on Saturday, which is thought to be the worst day so far.

Schoolgirls were seen on social media videos being led to ambulances and utilizing oxygen tanks at several locations across the nation.

Through the video and eyewitness accounts from ten provinces, reputed media outlet was able to confirm dozens of these new occurrences.

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the suspected poisonings an “unforgivable crime,” calling for “severe punishment” for anyone found responsible. As of last Wednesday, no one had been arrested in connection with the incidents, according to Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi.

“This is a big and unforgivable crime. If it is proven that the students were poisoned, the perpetrators of this crime should be severely punished. There will be no amnesty for these people,” Khamenei said on the sidelines of a tree-planting event in Tehran, according to official news agency.

According to Habib Haibar, vice president of Ahvaz University of Medical Science, the number of suspected poisonings in the Khuzestan province’s southeast on Sunday reached close to 700 individuals.

The first day of Iran’s five-day work and school week, from Saturday to Wednesday, was when many of the reports and videos shared on social media were shot.

In a statement published on Saturday by the state-affiliated, Vahidi said that “strange chemicals” had been connected to the incidents.

“During field investigations by the relevant bodies, suspicious samples have been found, which are being examined at laboratories in order to identify the causes of complications in students,” Vahidi said.

“Results will be announced as soon as possible by the Ministry of Health,” he added.

According to state-affiliated, Vahidi also stressed that the government places a high priority on student health.

While the string of suspected incidents dominated headlines, speculation has erupted among Iranian politicians.

Ebrahim Raisi ,the hardline president of Iran, attributed the incident to “enemies of Iran” on Friday who he claimed intended to incite unrest in the nation.

“Recently, the enemies who have been orchestrating and waging media and psychological warfare in Iran seek to weaken Iran’s security hoping to create an atmosphere of despair by fomenting insecurity and apprehension in the Iranian society,” Raisi said in a statement about the suspected poisoning attacks.

Raisi did not directly specify who the “enemies” were, although Tehran habitually accuses the United States and Israel of acting against it.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Friday criticized Western governments for “shedding crocodile tears” over the poisonings.

The Iranian government has been urged by the US and UN to adequately investigate the alleged poisonings and bring those responsible to justice.

In the meantime, rallies have been organized by the parents of the victims over the poisoning events, in scenes evoking the beginning of the national movement that broke out last September after the death of Mahsa Amini.

The Kurdish-Iranian woman, 22, was seized by Iran’s “morality police” and transported to a “re-education center,” purportedly for violating the nation’s strict dress code, but she later died.

According to reports, security personnel used tear gas to disperse protesters on Sunday in Tehran, the capital. Security officers were seen dispersing the demonstrators in social media videos.

Four medical sources who treated the pupils who were thought to have been poisoned, one teacher from a school where this occurred, and four parents of the victims were all interviewed by media and all stated they had been under pressure not to talk about the situation.

One medical professional who has handled a number of the affected students told media that he thought his phone was being watched.

In what he and three other medical sources claimed was a government-sponsored campaign to silence them, hospital management allegedly gave them orders not to discuss the matter in public.

Many schoolgirls were shown on social media on Sunday getting medical care at the Yazd hospital in central Iran.

“The private school was attacked by gas. All the children have difficulty breathing,” said the woman filming the video. “This is our country. They don’t even know what they are doing.”

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