According to state media, an Iranian deputy minister said on Sunday that “some people” were poisoning schoolgirls in the holy city of Qom with the goal of shutting down girls’ education.
Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning among schoolgirls have been reported, primarily in Qom, south of Tehran, with some requiring hospitalisation.
Younes Panahi, the deputy health minister, implied on Sunday that the poisonings were intentional.
“After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was discovered that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” Panahi was quoted as saying by the IRNA state news agency. He didn’t go into detail. So far, no arrests have been made in connection with the poisonings.
On February 14, parents of students who had been ill had 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.
The poisonings come as Iran has been rocked by protests since the December 16 death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini for an alleged violation of country’s strict dress code for women.