Iranian regime blamed for poisoning of hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls, as gender-based attacks continue

As more poisonings of schoolchildren are reported in Iran, human rights activists and journalists tell CBC News that the regime in Tehran is to blame for what they say are yet another gender-based attack in the country.

Close to 1,000 schoolgirls have reportedly been poisoned in Iran. Although regime officials initially denied the attack, some have now admitted it was deliberate. But three months after the first reported attack, no arrests have been made in connection with the poisoning, which activists suggest is retaliation for student participation in nationwide protests that have shaken the country.

The regime’s health minister said the students had “mild symptoms.” Media reports indicate that affected students have difficulty breathing, severe coughing, nausea and muscle weakness. Many have been hospitalized.

It is still unclear what type of poison gas was used in the attack and regime officials have given conflicting reports. At the earliest known toxicity occurred in the religious city of Qom on November 30, 2022. In early December, a group of independent activists called Qom Youth was among the first to denounce the regime for its actions “biological terror.”

Since then, poison attacks have occurred in dozens of secondary schools in several cities in four different provinces. Videos on social media and reports by activists suggest 20 schools in three cities were targeted on Wednesday alone.

A videos along with prominent Iranian American women’s rights activists Still Alinejad and published on social media on Wednesday, showing the mother of a poisoned girl attacked in broad daylight by plainclothes security forces in Tehran.

Alinejad said the people who took the video told them the woman was attacked after demanding answers about what happened from the school authorities. In the video, the woman is surrounded by a crowd as a man approaches her head and pulls her hair.

Witnesses told Alinejad that the woman was forced into a car in front of a school in western Teheran and taken away.

The attack was revenge for the protests, activists said

Alinejad told CBC News that she believes the Islamic Republic is taking revenge on the young girls who were at the forefront of anti-regime protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.

Amini’s family said she was beaten to death last September by a regime police patrol unit enforcing the Islamic dress code after she was arrested for wearing a hijab improperly.

At the height of the anti-regime protests, videos posted online show schoolgirls song slogan, waving hijab mandate in the air defiantly and tear up the picture Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic.

Alinejad said many of the poisoned children told me they were afraid to go into the ambulance or take the medicine they were offered because they were afraid they would be killed.

“The students know very well that the attack on the schoolgirls was deliberate and revenge by the Islamic Republic against the brave women who refused the forced hijab,” Alinejad told CBC News.

Human rights organizations like Amnesty International say the regime has targeted school and killed dozens of children in the wake of the protest.

Athena Daeimia longtime human rights activist in Iran, says the regime has used schools to enforce and enforce Islamist ideology for decades.

“We also see that during this revolution, schools have become the focus of repression,” he said. “Regime security forces even turned the school grounds into their own bases.”

According to Daemi, the responsibility for the attack rests on the shoulders of the Islamic Republic.

“This is a crime against humanity. The regime uses this method to scare people,” he said.

“They want to show that even if they don’t implement their own policies, there will be plainclothes forces that will respond strongly to what they perceive as a threat to the regime.”

Nejat Bahramijournalist and veteran teacher who previously served in the Ministry of Education in Tehran, said the regime was not involved in the poisoning.

Bahrami said that given the physical layout of the school and the grounds of the Iranian school, the poisoning must have occurred in the immediate vicinity of the school.

“There is no access to the courtyard from the outside, and access to schools in Iran is monitored and very difficult to obtain,” he said, noting the attack also showed a level of sophistication that was unlikely to come from rogue actors.

“The fact that this gas or poison was controlled to a level that did not kill the young girls and that the attacks were spread across different cities over a long period of time gives another clue to the involvement of the state,” he said.

Regime ‘follows the Taliban model’

Alinejad said the regime was trying to give the impression that radical groups opposed to school-going girls were behind the attack.

However, he believes the Islamic Republic itself is looking for ways to prevent girls from protesting.

“They don’t want to admit it publicly like the Taliban, but use terror tactics to scare the girls away from opening up in their schools.”

Daemi and Bahrami said that although hardline factions initially claimed responsibility for the attacks, the regime did nothing to stop them and began organizing and supporting them.

Toronto-based Iranian-Canadian gender equality expert Lily Pourzand said the regime was “planning biological and psychological terror scenarios to make schools unsafe for girls.”

“The regime wants to prevent girls from going to school and follows the Taliban model of repressing young girls,” she said.

No arrests have been made in 3 months

Daemi said the fact that the regime had made no arrests in connection with the attack was another reason he suspected the country was behind the poisoning.

“They have arrested anti-regime protesters for several days and executed them quickly by identifying them on camera, but they have not been able to find the perpetrators of the poisoning in the last three months?” she said.

Bahrami said the regime has not arrested because it wants the element of fear and terror to grow in the society.

“They may try to use the arrest to appeal to their small religious base,” he said. “He may end up adopting a so-called hard line to distinguish himself from these radical elements. Perhaps to buy legitimacy at a time when clerical rule is being challenged more than ever.”

Alinejad said people in Iran know “there is no difference between radicals and reformists.”

“The responsibility for the attack goes to the entire regime of the Islamic Republic,” he said.

Activists want an outside investigation

Different regime authorities have indicated they are currently investigating the poisoning, but Alinejad said he and other Iranians do not believe they are investigating properly.

“The regime that killed Mahsa Amini and more than 500 innocent protesters and hanged five innocent protesters can’t be trusted. You can’t put criminals to do the investigation of their own crimes,” said Alinejad.

“We need Doctors Without Borders and an accountability mechanism to step in. We need an outside organization to investigate this biological attack. Where is UNESCO?”

Pourzand said the international community must respond quickly and clearly to what he called “systematic gender-based violence,” especially as International Women’s Day approaches on March 8.

“It should be highlighted in every event and discussion that this gender apartheid regime is waging a biological and psychological war against young girls in Iran,” she said.