Iran: authorities singled out in schoolgirl poisoning case
A young girl is on a ventilator in hospital after cases of poisoning in an Iranian school, March 2, 2023. via REUTERS - REUTERS TV
Text by: Baptiste Condominas Follow
7 mins
More than 5,000 students in 200 schools across Iran have been victims of gas poisoning in the past three months.
While the mystery remains about the perpetrators of these poisonings, the government announced the first arrests on March 7.
But some opponents and experts suspect the authorities of wanting to create a climate of fear to curb the protest movement.
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This case of collective intoxication
began at the end of November when the media reported the first cases of poisoning by the respiratory tract of girls aged around 10 in schools in the religious city of Qom.
The phenomenon was then observed all over the country in dozens of establishments, in Tehran, Rasht, Mashhad, Bandar-e Abbas, Kermanshah in particular…
On Wednesday March 1, students from seven girls' schools in the city of Ardabil were indisposed in the morning by gas fumes and 108 people were taken to hospital, the head of the hospital department told the agency. press Tasnim.
Cases were also reported the same week in Tehran.
The latest were reported over the weekend in five provinces.
On Saturday March 4, dozens of young girls were transferred to hospitals in the provinces of Hamedan, Zanjan and West Azebaijan, Fars and Alborz.
On Sunday, new poisonings were reported in two girls' high schools in the cities of Abhar and Ahvaz, but also in a primary school in Zanjan, according to the Isna news agency, citing local health officials.
Nausea, dizziness, headaches...
Each time, the phenomenon is the same: students from girls' schools breathe in “
unpleasant
” or “
unfamiliar
” odors and then show symptoms such as nausea, headaches, shortness of breath, lethargy and dizziness.
"
A very bad smell spread all of a sudden, I felt bad and fell on the ground
," said a schoolgirl.
Some of these students are briefly hospitalized but none have so far been seriously affected.
In most cases, they returned to a normal state of health in the following days.
As these intoxications multiply, the questions accumulate and remain for the moment without a clear answer.
The origin of these ailments has not yet been identified with certainty and the exact nature of the product(s) used, for example, remains a mystery.
The Deputy Minister of Health explained at the end of February that the poisoning had been caused by chemical components available on the market.
According to the results of toxicological examinations provided by the Ministry of Health and quoted by a deputy, the toxic substance used in Qom was composed in particular of N2 gas, based on nitrogen, used in industry or as agricultural fertilizer.
"
No dangerous substance was detected in those who were examined in the medical centers
", according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Mohammad-Hassan Asafari, a member of the parliamentary commission of inquiry responsible for shedding light on the causes of this wave of poisonings, specified that the "tests carried out
to identify
" these substances had not made it possible to determine them with certainty.
It is not even known whether these are the same products used from one case to another.
First arrests
As for the question of the perpetrators, the Interior Ministry on Tuesday announced the arrest of “
a number of people
” suspected of preparing dangerous substances in several provinces, stating that three of them had criminal records “
including involvement in the recent riots
”, a term used by the authorities to describe the protests sparked after the death of Mahsa Amini.
►
To read also
Iran: behind the death of Mahsa Amini, the uprising of a people
Still according to the ministry, one of them "
introduced irritating substances into the school through her child
” and sent the “
hostile media
” images of the schoolgirls after the poisonings to “
create fear among people and cause schools to close
”.
But this version is not to satisfy parents of angry students, explains Saeed Paivandi, sociologist and professor at the University of Lorraine.
"
After a silence of three months and contradictory statements, the authorities are speaking out to say that it is the opponents who are behind all this, while they denied and minimized the facts at the beginning", underlines this specialist in the questions
of teaching and education.
"
People are angry
."
The parents of students have indeed mobilized on several occasions to protest, because concern and anger are rising in the country.
First day of the week in #Iran, many cases of schoolgirl poisoning are still being reported!
Police attack families worried about their children.
This explosive situation may launch a new wave of protests in the country.
#MahsaAmini pic.twitter.com/h4XhfIEHay
— Farid Vahid (@FaridVahiid) March 4, 2023
climate of fear
Latest movement to date, parents gathered in some cities in front of government centers this weekend.
A rally outside an Education Ministry building in the west of the capital on Saturday turned into an anti-government mobilization, during which protesters equated the Revolutionary Guards and its paramilitary force with the Islamic State group, in a video verified by Reuters.
Similar protests took place in two other districts of Tehran and in other cities, including Isfahan and Rasht.
The parents denounce the inaction of the authorities and some even suspect them of being behind this wave of poisoning.
Because if, at the beginning, the theory of an ultra-conservative small group hostile to the education of girls "
seemed plausible
", believes Saeed Paivandi, the more the phenomenon has grown, "
the more the hypothesis of an action reflection coming from a structure such as the Revolutionary Guards or the intelligence services has imposed itself in public opinion
".
Some see in these poisonings a
"revenge
" of the regime against
the protest movement
linked to the death of Mahsa Amini, of which women and young girls are the spearhead.
“
The objective,
analyzes the sociologist,
is to create a particular psychological atmosphere, to instill a collective fear, but without going any further, without causing too much damage.
To send a message to families and opponents and prevent acts of civil disobedience.
»
Here too, students from two elementary and middle schools were poisoned.
This has heightened the anger of the population.
The absence of an effective reaction from the authorities shows their involvement in this act, which must be qualified as terrorist.
What saddens me the most is that now children are also targeted.
Ronak, a resident of Kermanshah, testifies at the microphone of RFI on March 1
Darya Kianpour
Change of discourse and contradictions
To support this theory, Professor Saeed Paivandi points to several sets of clues.
He first recalls the change in official discourse.
“
The authorities kept silent, they denied the phenomenon, they then played it safe and when the Supreme Leader took a stand on Monday to denounce an “unforgivable crime”, suddenly the discourse changed, the ministries and the Guardians of the revolution said they were mobilized.
»
A paradox that adds to the contradictory statements between several state actors.
While at the start of the affair, “
the Ministries of Education and the Interior said that it did not exist, the Ministry of Health spoke of poisoning.
And then a deputy from Qom said that we couldn't say everything because it was a security issue.
And in Iran, "
when it comes to security, that means: the Revolutionary Guards and the paramilitaries or the intelligence apparatus
", specifies the sociologist.
The researcher adds that many are also wondering about the inaction of the security forces in poisonings that concern thousands of students when they are particularly reactive when there are acts of civil disobedience in these same schools. "
The opacity around this affair is incredible and one wonders if the State is incompetent or complicit
", sums up the sociologist.
Calls for a transparent investigation
For the NGO Iran Human Rights, the authorities are indeed accomplices.
She considered in a tweet of March 2 that “
these attacks are coordinated chemical terrorist attacks
”.
According to its director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, "
the absence of appropriate and preventive measures on the part of the authorities of the Islamic Republic reinforces the hypothesis according to which the perpetrators of the attacks are directly or indirectly linked to state institutions placed under the command of Ali Khamenei
”.
The United States called on Monday for "
a credible and independent investigation
".
"
If these poisonings are linked to participation in protests, then it falls squarely within the mandate of the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission
," established in November to investigate human rights abuses in Iran, he said. said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.
Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also called
for "
a transparent investigation
"
and public findings.
At the end of the day, it's going to get people out on the streets.
And there will be more demonstrations, because the subject is very sensitive.
I think everyone in Iran thinks it comes from the regime.
They are responsible and it is their way of showing us that we must be afraid of the consequences of our commitment.
Anger grows in the case of the intoxicated schoolgirls
Nicolas Falez
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