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Since late November, local media have reported cases of respiratory poisoning in hundreds of girls around the age of 10 in schools in Qom (Illustrative photo of an Iranian girl in Iran)
IRAN — Individuals have poisoned hundreds of students in a major holy city in Iran in recent months to force the closure of girls’ schools, a health agency said on Sunday (Feb. 26).
Since late November, local media have been reporting cases of respiratory poisoning in hundreds of girls around the age of 10 in schools in Qom (centre). Some of them were briefly hospitalized.
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Her parents gathered outside the city’s governorate on February 14 to “demand explanations” from the authorities, according to the official Irna agency. The next day, government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi announced that “the intelligence and education ministries are working together” to find the source of the poisoning.
No arrest announced
Following that investigation, “Deputy Health Minister Youness Panahi on Sunday implicitly confirmed that the poisoning of students in Qom was intentional,” Irna announced.
“It turned out that some individuals wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” Youness Panahi said. No arrests have been announced. The poisoning was caused by “available and non-military chemical compounds and is neither contagious nor transmissible,” he added without further detail.
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This case comes as Iran has been rocked by a protest movement since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16 in the custody of vice squads, who accused her of violating the strict dress code that requires women in particular to wear the veil.
The city of Qom, 150 km south of Tehran, is the center of Shiite religious studies in Iran.
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