Chemical gas attacks by regime operatives resumed following Iran’s Nowruz holiday season. These measures, which had stopped for about a month before, have picked up again and are on the rise. The new round of poisonings started on April 3 from the cities of Naqadeh and Tabriz. In the following days, they spread to schools in Isfahan, Qom, Kohenjan Sarvestan, Piranshahr, Sanandaj, Diwandareh, Saqqez, Qazvin, Ardabil, Haftgol, Ahvaz, Urmia, and Pardis in Tehran.
The Kurdistan Teachers’ Union described these chemical gas attacks against all-girls schools across Iran as “organized” and even “the killing of children”.
News censorship
These attacks continue while regime authorities are discussing measures aimed at identifying the opponents of compulsory hijab with security cameras. However, the mullahs’ security entities are failing to find the perpetrators of these chemical gas attacks. At the same time, the regime’s Deputy Interior Minister claims that children themselves are behind these poisonings.
The chemical gas attacks targeting all-girls school in Iran began in mid-December 2022 from the city of Qom, and gradually spread to different cities.
The Interior Ministry also issued a notice to state media prohibiting all outlets from publishing news related to these chemical gas attacks on schools, and described the Education and Interior ministries as the only “reliable sources” in this regard.
“Kidney complications”
Karo Pashabadi, a student from Kamiyaran, western Iran, who was studying in Tehran, died on April 7 after being hospitalized for three weeks in the capital’s Milad Hospital.
The Education Ministry announced the 16-year-old’s cause of death as “intestinal disease and kidney failure”.
Some media reported that his death as caused by serial poisoning in schools.
The Education Ministry’s public relations notice stated that Karo Pashabadi went to Milad Hospital in Tehran on March 19 due to stomach ache, adding that on that date and days prior there were no reports of “lethargy” among the students of Tehran’s Alami School.
Iranian state media use the term “lethargy” instead of “poisoning,” based on orders and instructions from above .
Poisoning and lying
Similar to the previous attacks, senior regime officials and authorities are denying the matter in its entirety.
“Less than ten percent of the students showed signs of respiratory stimulants… Part of these factors were caused by excitement… Another due to media hype,” said the Health Ministry’s Deputy Health Director, according to the Etamed Online website on April 9.
Hamid Kazemi, head of the “Student Poisoning Fact Finding Task Force”, went even further with preposterous remarks during an open session of the regime’s Majlis (parliament). “Some students may do such things out of mischief… I think that in two weeks we will be able to present a report in this regard to the public forum of the Majlis,” he said, according to an April 8 report by the Etamed Online website.
“More than 1,300 school students have gone to hospitals and still not a single official pathology report has been issued. The Passive Defense Organization has not provided a sampling report from the schools, and we have not seen even a single official situation being published. Furthermore, there is no ‘lead suspect’ for these chemical gas attacks”.
Mehrdad Veis Karami, a member of the Majlis Education Commission, recently said that there were no poisoning attacks at all (!) and that some students felt ill after inhaling oil vapor.
“This is not poisoning. Nausea is not scientifically considered a case of poisoning,” Veis Karami argued.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Hassan Asafari, a member of the Majlis fact-finding committee, said that last week’s committee meeting ended without any result because security organizations have no lead in this regard. “However, it is not acceptable for the board to just say that scented toy balloons were the cause of the poisoning,” he added, adding more controversy to the already sensitive subject.
Majid Mir Ahmadi, the Interior Ministry’s deputy in security and law enforcement, sought to further downplay the issue in its entirety. “The few cases seen in the new year, which were very limited, were due to mischief by some students seeking to shut down their schools. There have been one or two cases where students used pepper spray, which were identified and will definitely be dealt with,” he said, according to an April 10 report wired the official Mehr news agency.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian opposition coalition NCRI, has strongly condemned the ongoing chemical gas attacks in Iran. The goal of the inhumane mullahs’ regime in this systematic crime is to counter the uprising and take revenge on Iranian women and girls who are in the front line of the struggle to overthrow this regime, she added. There is a strong need for an independent investigation by an international fact-finding committee and relevant UN bodies to thus render urgent action aimed at stop this horrific crime, Mrs. Rajavi concluded.
