Amid anti-hijab protests, Iran schoolgirls ‘deliberately’ poisoned to stop them from getting education: Report

Even as Iran continues to see massive anti-hijab protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

The Islamic nation continues to curb the rights of women by poisoning schoolgirls to stop them from getting education. An Iranian deputy minister on Sunday said “some people” were poisoning schoolgirls in the holy city of Qom with the aim of shutting down education for girls, AFP reported, quoting state media.

According to reports, deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, confirmed the poisonings had been deliberate.

A recent spate of mass illnesses at girls’ schools in Iran was caused by deliberate poisoning using “chemical compounds,” a senior Iranian health official told the Fars news agency, reported Bloomberg.

Several cases of respiratory poisoning were reported in Qom, located 160 kilometers from Tehran, in November last year with some needing hospital treatment. “After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” the IRNA state news agency quoted Panahi as saying.

So far, there have been no arrests linked to the poisonings, AFP reported. On February 14, parents of students who had fallen ill gathered outside the city’s governorate to “demand an explanation” from the authorities, IRNA reported.

The next day, government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said the intelligence and education ministries were trying to find the cause of the poisonings. Last week, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri ordered a judicial probe into the incidents.

Qom, where the first poisoning was reported, is a deeply conservative and religious city. It is also home to Iran’s clergy and theological seminaries where most of the country’s leaders and presidents have studied, Bloomberg said in a report.

The poisonings also come at a time when the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan continue to keep schools and universities closed to girls and women, effectively banning them from education.