The chain poisonings in Iranian girls’ schools were a series of ongoing incidents during which students at a large number of schools in Iran were suspiciously poisoned. This event lasted from November 30, 2022 (9 Azar 1401) to April 2023 (Farvardin 1402) and began at a girls’ high school in the city of Qom. After that, hundreds of students in dozens of schools in Qom—mostly middle and high school girls’ schools—were poisoned.
These chemical poisonings (attacks) were not limited to Qom; they spread to other cities across Iran, including Borujerd, Sari, Ardabil, Tehran, Fardis, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Nishapur, Mashhad, and even a university student dormitory in Borujerd. The death of at least one student as a result of these chemical poisonings has been officially reported.
The text that follows is a statement by the “Feminists for Zhina Network” regarding these poisonings.
Feminists for Jina network strongly condemns the serial poisoning caused by chemical attacks in girls’ schools in Iran and holds the Islamic Republic of Iran directly responsible for them. These attacks are carried out in an organised and widespread manner in different cities of Iran. The use of gas and chemical components unobtainable for ordinary people, shows that the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran have a direct role in these horrific incidents.
Chemical attacks on children are crimes against humanity.
The ideology of Political Islam based on the suppression of women. Hence it seeks to scare girls and women who dared to demand their rights and reclaim the public space, during the Jina’s uprising.
Instilling fear through systematic suppression and violence, through institutions such as the Morality Police or acid attacks in Isfahan, is in the repertoire of the Islamic Republic and the schoolkids’ poisoning is a continuation of such violence.
On the other hand, according to the received reports, most attacked schools are among those attended by low-income families and in economically deprived neighbourhoods. This magnifies the hardship on those in marginalised areas such as Haftpeh, where one cannot even find an equipped hospital, and poisoned students have to go to nearby cities.
In the recent days, some journalists and university professors, and the so-called “anti-imperialists” in the diaspora – who are constantly justifying and propagandising the Iranian regime – have popularised a misogynistic theory of “mass hysteria” and joined the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national-media and IRG-affiliated newspapers in spreading false news.
However the public has been aware of the truth from the very beginning of these attacks. Authoritarian regimes learn their methods of intimidation and repression from each other. For example, the authoritarian Russian government killed a famous Ukrainian journalist who was conducting an investigation on students’ mass poisoning from chemical attacks, in Chechnya, in 2016. In the same year as the Taliban carried out a series of chemical poisonings at a girl’s school.
The demonstrations outside the institutions of education in different cities, and other grassroot organisations in the last few days, are the first steps to protect schools and fight this organised crime.
However, until these attacks are not put to an end and its designers and those responsible are not held accountable, protesting and organising against them, inside and outside Iran is crucial.