Chemical Attacks Continue On Students In Iran As Regime Blames The West
Chemical attacks on girl's schools in Iran continued on Saturday with reports saying students in at least 16 elementary and high schools were poisoned.
Chemical attacks on girl's schools in Iran continued on Saturday with reports saying students in at least 16 elementary and high schools were poisoned.
A large number of students have been taken to hospital and based on published reports, the type of toxic substances used in the attacks has been identified.
The wave of intentional poisoning of female students, which started in November in the religious city of Qom, spread further throughout the country and reached schools in small towns and villages on Saturday.
Reports say female students of elementary and high schools in Tehran, Qom, Pakdasht, Karaj, Urmia, Zanjan, Hamedan, Safadasht, Shahriyar, and Rasht were taken to hospitals after being poisoned.
Tasnim News Agency, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, reported that at least 30 students at a school in Urmia in the northwest were transferred to medical centers in the city.
Attacks on schools in the past days were not only limited to female students, and reports also said that a group of male students were poisoned on Saturday following a chemical attack on a primary school in Karaj in the vicinity of Tehran.
Three months into the serial poisoning of students, not only the perpetrators of the chemical attacks have not been identified, but the attacks have spread to more cities.
Morteza Khatami, Vice-Chairman of the Parliament's Health and Treatment Commission, claimed on Saturday that students are poisoned by a combination of several types of gases.
It was previously announced that N2 gas was the cause of poisonings, but Khatami stated “N2 gas does not explain the symptoms and clinical manifestations, but other gases have symptoms that justify the numbness of the body.”
Nausea, vomiting, cough, shortness of breath, etc. are the symptoms Khatami mentioned adding that "according to clinical evidence, the students who were poisoned had unstable and short-term poisonings, but their tests were normal."
In the past days, many parents and some political and religious figures, including Sunni Imam of Zahedan,Mowlavi Abdolhamid have called the “deliberate” poisoning of female students to be a government project to take revenge on them for participating in the nationwide uprising after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September.
Security forces attacking parents outside schools in Tehran
Some others believe the aim of such attacks was to make girls and women stay at home, depriving them from education and any other social activity.
However, the Islamic Republic authorities and the state media are trying to blame their opponents for the biological terror of schoolgirls.
Kayhan hardline newspaper, in its report on Saturday, called the serial poisonings "a new phase of the hybrid war by the West and its Iranian allies against the Islamic Republic.”
Meanwhile, a group of protesting citizens and parents of poisoned students gathered in front of the education department in various cities including Tehran, Esfahan, Kermanshah and Ardebil on Saturday. Condemning the poisoning of female students, they chanted slogans against Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei and senior government officials.
Reports say following the protests, dozens of people were arrested in different cities, and many were beaten by security forces and regime plainclothes mercenaries.
The families of some students in Tehran gathered outside the education ministry’s headquarters in protest and chanted the slogan like "Death to the Taliban, whether in Iran or Afghanistan".
The country's interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, an ex-IRGC top officer wanted by Interpol for his part in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, has been tasked with leading the investigation, though has so far denied any foul play.
The constitutional court said in a press release Friday that "The Court rejects the action for annulment," a decree that could lead to Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, convicted of terrorism, being swapped for Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, held hostage in Iran.
“The Court rejects the appeal against the law assenting to the Belgian-Iranian treaty, but the victims of a convicted person must be informed of his transfer so as to be able to submit this for the review of the legality by a judge,” read the statement.
The court added that “This balancing act must be made in a concrete case and on a case-by-case basis, and must be open for judicial review. It is up to the competent judge (in principle the Court of first instance), with respect for the separation of powers, to review the legality of the decision of the Government authorizing the transfer of a person detained in Belgium towards a foreign State of which it is a national.”
The temporary ban on the extradition of the convicted diplomat was announced by the Brussels Court of Appeal late in July following numerous complaints after the Belgian Parliament ratified a controversial prisoner swap treaty with Iran on July 20. The Iranian exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) mounted a fierce campaign against the deal, challenging the possible extradition. "The court has now declared the plaintiffs' question unfounded," said lawyer Khloë Georgiev, who represents Vandecasteele. In June, Belgian MPs ratified a deal to allow the exchange. At the time, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo argued that it was the only way to get Vandeesteele back home safely.
The Islamic Republic’s judiciary sentenced Vandecasteele, who was detained in 2022, to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for alleged “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran.” Vandecasteele, 41, has served in various international humanitarian organizations since at least 2006, including, Médecins du Monde, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and Relief International. He worked in Iran for humanitarian organizations for more than six years and left the country. Later, he was lured back by “a girlfriend” and was detained in February 2022. A spokesman for Vandecasteele’s family said in December that he should serve up to 28 years in prison.
In a statement released late in February, Amnesty International said Iranian authorities are subjecting Vandecasteele to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, urging all states whose nationals are or have been detained at any point in Iran to promptly examine whether the deprivation of liberty amounts to an act of hostage-taking, and if so, take all appropriate measures to ensure accountability. Currently, at least 16 foreign citizens, most of whom dual nationals, are detained in the prisons of the Islamic Republic.
Assadi, 50, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria, was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the MEK near Paris on June 30, 2018. The only Iranian diplomat ever brought to trial in Europe for direct involvement in terrorism was arrested in Germany, where he did not enjoy diplomatic immunity, while he was on holiday. German authorities later extradited Assadi to Belgium.
Some Belgian lawmakers voiced concern that the prisoner exchange treaty might lead to "hostage diplomacy" and put other Belgians at risk of detention.
On Monday, February 27, Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib held a meeting with the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian hours before tens of participants at the UN Human Rights Council walked out when Akir-Abdollahian spoke at the 52nd session of the body at UHRC’s headquarters in Geneva.
The meeting between the Belgian and Iranian ministers drew heavy criticism by many activists and officials, including Belgian lawmaker Darya Safai, who pointed out that “The Belgian government goes along with hostage diplomacy.” Lahbib herself tweeted about the release of Vandecasteele, who was probably the main reason for the meeting.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Friday described the wave of poisonings of hundreds of schoolgirls around the country as part of a psychological war by the enemies meant “to instill stress and anxiety among students and parents, creating chaos.” He did not say who those enemies are but in the Islamic Republic jargon, the ‘enemies’ usually mean as the United States and Israel, and recently every entity and individual who has expressed support for the current wave of antiregime protests.
“One day, the enemies instigate street riots and another day they try to create problems in the field of education and schools because despite all the plots, people across the country came to the scene and defeated the enemy,” he said, and then referred to state-sponsored demonstrations in February to mark the 44th anniversary of the regime as a victory.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Friday also hit out at Western governments. “The interventionist reaction of some Western authorities to the question of the suspected poisoning of dear Iranian female students is the continuation of the enemy's hybrid war,” he wrote in a Twitter post.
He claimed that “the relevant institutions of the country are following up seriously and meticulously examining its dimensions. The great nation of Iran knows crocodile tears very well!” He made the remarks as the authorities have not yet allowed media or parents to view the content of surveillance cameras around the schools, which were attacked.
The so-far unexplained poisonous gas attacks at about 60 schools and girl dormitories in one-third of the country’s provinces began November 30 when the first case of poisoning among schoolgirls was reported in the religious city of Qom. Around 1,000 students have become ill with the mysteriously dispersed, unidentified fumes so far. The country's interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, an ex-IRGC top officer wanted by Interpol for his part in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, has been tasked with leading the investigation, though he has so far denied fowl play.
Many suspect the schools have been targeted by religious groups opposed to girls' education. The authorities have also denied reports that the death of 11-year-old Fatemeh Rezaei was linked to the poisonings.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani urged other countries not to comment on the issues in Iran and described the calls for investigations by right groups and officials as “interventions and dramatic” statements.
Meanwhile, even religious leaders – both Shiites who are among the inner circles of the regime and Sunnis such as Mowlavi Abdolhamid -- have spoken out against government’s inadequate reaction to the poisonings.
Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, cited Reza Karimi Saleh, the deputy governor of Pardis suburb where one of the attacks happened as saying that a fuel tanker driver was arrested because he was next to a school and had also been spotted in two other cities. "Guards at a parking lot where the fuel tanker was parked also suffered from poisoning."
Many have started questioning the efficiency of the intelligence agencies, which are very fast in identifying protesters and arresting them, while others say those responsible for the gas attacks are not identified because the regime already knows they are insiders.
In Geneva, the United Nations human rights office on Friday called for a transparent investigation into the attacks. Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that "We're very concerned about these allegations that girls are being deliberately targeted under what appear to be mysterious circumstances.” She said that the findings of a government investigation should be made public, and the perpetrators brought to justice.