Poison gas attacks on Iranian schoolgirls have resumed as the government increases its crackdown on those defying the mandatory wearing of hijabs in public.
Incidents were reported in multiple schools in cities and towns in half a dozen provinces since classes started again following the two week Nowruz new year holiday, according to Iranian media outlets.
The first case of post-Nowruz poisoning was reported on April 4th in Tabriz where 20 girls were hospitalised for dizziness, headaches, and nausea.
Iranian human rights groups and government officials have estimated that 7,000 students have been poisoned in at least 103 schools across 28 of Iran’s 31 provinces since late November. The highest number of recorded attacks on one day was 81.
While there have been hundreds of hospitalisations, no deaths have been reported.
The poisonings began days before the government announced new measures for monitoring women’s observance of the headscarf rules, including the use of cameras on streets and in government offices, universities and parks.
Protests against the hijab began in mid-September after Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini (23), was accused of “bad hijab” and died while detained by Tehran’s morality police.
Women and girls subsequently flocked to the streets and took over university campuses and schools in cities and towns across Iran and were joined by professionals, trade unionists, workers and farmers seeking jobs and better pay, and also demanding regime change.
“There are some unsolved mysteries with the poisonings,” US-Iranian academic Mona Tajali said. “However, some of its aspects are clear: they are intentional, they are spreading, and they are occurring in the context of the months-long protests.”
For two months, the government dismissed reports of poisonings as mass hysteria and did nothing to investigate the attacks. At the end of February, Iran’s health ministry said a team of 30 toxicologists identified the gas used by perpetrators as nitrogen, which is invisible, tasteless,and odourless. The police have found home-made devices for releasing gases embedded in stuffed toys left in school rooms and yards.
Last month, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei declared the poisonings were “a huge and unforgivable crime” and said perpetrators “should face the maximum penalty.”
More than 100 suspects were arrested last month. Details on their identity or motives were not released.
The failure of the government to act promptly, explain the attacks, and catch those responsible has led some Iranian commentators to suggest the attacks on girls could be committed by supporters of the clerical government who want revenge for the hijab protests or by ultra-conservatives who seek to follow the example of the Afghan Taliban and close down girls’ schools.
Shuttering girls’ schools would eliminate the signal achievement of the clerical government. Before it seized power, female literacy was 28 per cent. By 2021 literacy among girls 15 to 24 had reached 99 per cent and 60 per cent of university students were women, according to World Bank data.
