Chemical attacks against Iranian schoolgirls continue, perpetrators unknown

The targeting of Iranian girls at schools with chemical attacks has not stopped since November of the last year, a matter that raises questions about who is behind the attempt to deprive girls of the right to education in Iran.

The Iranian teachers’ union announced on April 24 that a number of female teachers were admitted to intensive care units after chemical attacks were launched on Fatimieh Academy

and Shahid Javaid al-Athar High School in Hamadan district and other attacks that targeted Fateme Medical School in Karaj and a girls' school in Hassan Abad in Sanandaj.

🔴تصاویری از #حمله_شیمیایی به یک مدرسه دخترانه در حسن‌آباد #سنندج

دوشنبه ۴ اردیبهشت ۱۴۰۲#مسمومیت_دانش_آموزان#دانش_آموزان_خط_قرمز_ما_هستند.

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— کانال صنفی معلمان ایران (@kasenfee) April 24, 2023

Girls at the schools smelled chemical odors in classrooms and found themselves having “respiratory and gastrointestinal problems, fainting, and eye irritation,” according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), which added that thousands of schoolgirls have been hospitalized since November 2022.

Human rights organizations blamed the government for this mass poisoning. CHRI Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi accused the Iranian security forces of threatening parents and teachers not to talk publicly about the poisoning cases.

The first case of a chemical attack against schoolgirls was reported in November 2022, according to UN experts, including Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, in mid-March. They accused the government of being mute and inactive against the perpetrators.

The UN experts said that the Iranian authorities also arrested a journalist who was covering the cases of chemical attacks in Qom, saying the fate of journalist Ali Pourtabatabaei is still unknown.

“We fear that they are orchestrated to punish girls for their involvement in the movement – Women, Life, Freedom, and for expressing their opposition to mandatory hijab and voicing their demands for equality,” the experts said in a statement.

However, on March 1, President Ebrahim Raisi assigned Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to launch an investigation into the poisoning of schoolgirls, Tehran Times reported. Raisi accused Western states of “seeking to create stress and anxiety among students and parents so that chaos is formed. One day, the enemies instigate street riots and another day they try to create problems in the field of education and schools,” Fars News Agency reported on March 4.

Girls themselves were accused as well by the government. It was reported that Vahidi attributed the occurrence of the poisoning to “stress” among the students who wanted to avoid exam attendance.

In the period between late November 2022 and March 7, 2023, more than 7,068 students in 103 schools have been attacked by “an unspecified toxic gas,” said the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) in a statement on April 14, adding that the authorities arrested three girls for accusations of poison attacks on schools in Shiraz.

Although the Ministry of Interior announced the arrest of hundreds of people for accusations of poisoning cases, as was reported by local media, incidents of chemical attacks have not stopped yet.