Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Monday called the gassing of more than 1,000 girls in dozens of girls’ schools an “unforgivable crime.”
“It is an unforgivable crime. Those responsible for these crimes must be severely punished,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by official Iranian media.
The religious leader asked the authorities to investigate the poisoning in girls’ schools, allegedly by some type of gas, which began in November in the holy Shiite city of Qom and has multiplied in recent days in various regions of the country.
So far, more than a thousand schoolgirls have been poisoned in dozens of cities across the country. The young students suffered from headaches, palpitations, nausea, dizziness, and sometimes the inability to move their limbs after smelling citrus, chlorine, or cleaning products.
The latest cases occurred on Sunday in several cities across the country, including in a student dormitory where 450 young people live, of whom 29 were hospitalized, the Shargh daily reported.
The Home Office and the Information Ministry are investigating the attacks.
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, there were gas attacks in 52 schools and an unknown number of female students were poisoned, figures that are far from those provided by the Iranian media and activist groups.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi blamed the poisonings on the country’s “enemies,” a term often used to refer to the United States and Israel.
The attacks are fueling popular discontent, particularly among parents, given the ineffectiveness of the authorities in stopping attacks that appear to be aimed at stopping women’s education.
In Iran, female education has never been banned in the 43 years of the Islamic Republic’s existence and some parents link the poisonings to the protests that have taken place in recent months.
The reported attacks come at a sensitive time in Iran, which has faced protests for months following the death of young Mahsa Amini following her arrest in September by the country’s morality police.
Many of the school and college students who participated in these protests removed their headscarves, shouted “woman, life, freedom” and smashed portraits of Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Source: TSF
