The affair provoked strong emotion in the country. Iran has announced the first arrests in the investigation into the series of poisonings that affected thousands of schoolgirls. Deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi appeared on state television on Tuesday March 7 to announce that ” several people “ had “have been arrested in five provinces” on “the basis of investigations carried out by the intelligence services”. He did not give details of their identity, the circumstances of their arrest and their alleged involvement.
The day before, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had intervened to demand “severe penalties” against those found guilty of these acts, which he described as “unpardonable crimes”. They “must be sentenced to severe penalties” And “there will be no amnesty” for them, warned the highest authority of Iran, which evoked this affair for the first time.
In total, “more than 5,000 students have been affected” In “some 230 schools” located in 25 of the country’s 31 provinces since the end of November, said Tuesday Mohammad-Hassan Asafari, a member of the parliamentary commission of inquiry responsible for shedding light on the causes of this wave of poisonings.
Several students hospitalized
Each time, the phenomenon was repeated: pupils of girls’ schools breathe odors “unpleasant” Or “unknowns” then exhibit symptoms such as nausea, shortness of breath and dizziness. “A very bad smell spread all of a sudden, I felt bad and fell on the floor”told a schoolgirl.
Some of the students are briefly hospitalized but none have so far been seriously affected. “No dangerous substances were detected in those who were examined in the medical centers”, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Mr. Asafari clarified that the “tests conducted to identify” these substances had not made it possible to determine them with certainty.
On Sunday, Majid Mirahmadi accused the “perpetrators of the poisoning of the girls” to want “close schools”but also of “blaming the system” in order to “rekindle the extinguished flame of the riots”. He was thus alluding to the protest movement triggered in Iran by the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by the morality police who accused her of having violated the strict dress code imposing in particular on women the wearing of the veil. For his part, President Ebrahim Raïssi called on the State services to “to frustrate the enemy’s plot” Who “wants to sow fear, insecurity and despair”.