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, state media reported.
Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls mainly in Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospital treatment.
On Sunday the deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, implicitly confirmed the poisonings had been deliberate.
“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.
He did not elaborate. So far, there have been no arrests linked to 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.
Football Loving Manipur to Get World-Class Football Stadium Soon, CM Biren Singh Discusses with Kiren…
Necessary legal action has been initiated against the accused, as authorities continue to crack down…
The find, made by researchers Arjun Adit and Pankaj Kumar, has been hailed as a…
This win gives Sikkim a strong start to the tournament, boosting their confidence ahead of…
Alarmed by the situation, officials from aviation safety body BCAS met the CEOs of the…
Plans for an anthropological research project and protests in Delhi were discussed.