March 7, 2023
DUBAI,
United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian teachers held protests in several cities on
Tuesday over suspected poisonings targeting hundreds of schoolgirls. Security
forces broke up several of the demonstrations using water cannons and tear gas,
activists said.
Meanwhile,
prosecutors started filing criminal charges against journalists, activists and
others over their comments on the still-unsolved incidents that began in
November and escalated in recent days, with dozens of schools reporting
suspected cases.
The
alleged poisonings come as Iran has faced months of protests over the September
death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country's morality police, one of
the most-serious challenges to Iran's theocracy since its 1979 Islamic
Revolution. These new incidents threaten to again stoke public anger as parents
fear for their children's safety. It remains unclear who may be behind the
suspected attacks and what chemicals — if any — have been used.
At
least 127 schools have reported suspected poisoning cases so far, according to
figures compiled by the Tehran-based reformist newspaper Etemad, with dozens
reported on one recent day alone. Nearly every school reporting an incident has
been a girls’ school.
Activists
and Iranian media reports previously have said that over 1,000 students
complained of falling ill with at least 400 of them hospitalized. Iranian
authorities have offered no exact figures since the crisis began.
However,
Mohammed Hassan Asefari, a prominent Iranian lawmaker who is on a panel investigating
the incidents and has close ties to security forces, told the semiofficial ISNA
news agency that as many as 5,000 students have complained of being sickened in
230 schools across 25 of Iran's 31 provinces. No other official or media report
has offered figures that high so far.
On
Tuesday, online videos and photos purportedly showed teachers demonstrating in
a number of Iranian cities, including Ahvaz, Isfahan, Karaj, Mashhad, Rasht,
Sanandaj, Saqqez and Shiraz.
Others
showed anti-riot police on streets, with some police officers surrounding those
demonstrating in Isfahan. Activists identifying themselves as belonging to
Iran's Coordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates said police used pepper
spray, water cannons and force to disperse protesters in Mashhad, Rasht and
Saqqez.
Iranian
state media made no mention of Tuesday's demonstrations or of security forces
dispersing demonstrators. Teachers have been targeted by security forces and
faced arrests for months over protesting in support of their long-standing
demands for salary increases amid the collapse of Iran's currency, the rial.
Protesters
and others have raised the possibility that religious extremists may be
targeting schoolgirls to stop them from receiving educations. Attacks on women
have happened in the past in Iran, most recently with a wave of acid attacks in
2014 around Isfahan, at the time believed to have been carried out by
hard-liners targeting women for how they dressed. But even in the chaos
surrounding the Islamic Revolution, no one targeted schoolgirls for attending
classes.
Iran
itself also has been calling on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to have
girls and women return to school.
Determining
what's going on in Iran has been difficult. Authorities have detained nearly
100 journalists since the start of the protests in September over the death of
the 22-year-old Amini, detained allegedly because of how she was dressed. The
targeting of journalists has escalated in recent days amid their reports on the
suspected poisonings.
Tehran
chief prosecutor Ali Salehi said authorities began filing charges against
journalists, including editors at the reformist newspapers Hammihan and Shargh,
which have led reporting on the suspected poisonings. A news site, activists
and others also face charges over allegedly spreading “unreal claims and
totally false” statements about the attacks, Salehi said, according to the
Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency.
Salehi
sought to justify the cases by saying those charged jeopardized the “psychological
security” of Iran's citizens.
Iran's
government, while initially ignoring reports of alleged poisonings back in
November, has faced increasing pressure from the public to respond. On Monday,
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said any culprits connected to the
alleged poisonings should be sentenced to death for committing an “unforgivable
crime.”
Deputy
Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi told Iranian state television Tuesday that
authorities have arrested an unspecified number of suspects over the poisoning
incidents. However, officials have made claims about arrests previously that
were later denied.
As
Iran struggles to respond, international pressure is growing on Tehran to
investigate. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday called
for a “credible, independent investigation” into the incidents by the United
Nations.
“If
these poisonings are related to participation in protests, then it is well
within (the) mandate of the U.N. independent international fact-finding mission
on Iran to investigate,” she said. Iran hasn't acknowledged asking for outside
help and has described some of the recent incidents as episodes of “hysteria.”
The
World Health Organization documented a similar phenomenon in Afghanistan from
2009 to 2012, when hundreds of girls across the country complained of strange
smells and poisoning. No evidence was found to support the suspicions, and WHO
said it appeared to be a “mass psychogenic illness.”
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