Amnesty International has launched a comprehensive appeal to the Attorney General of IranMohammad Jafar Montazeri, asking him to immediately launch independent and thorough investigations into thepoisoning of thousands of schoolgirlswith the aim of bringing to justice anyone suspected of being responsible.
Since November 30, 2022, when the first attacks were reported in Qom schools. thousands of female students have been poisoned by toxic gases in schools all over Iran and hospitalized. More than 100 schools have been targeted, some more than once, for a total of over 300 attacks.
Cough, breathing difficulties, nose and throat irritation, palpitationsheadache, nausea, vomit and numbness in the limbs are the most common symptoms. Following these attacks, many families they pulled their daughters out of school. Although according to official data 13,000 female students needed medical treatment, the health minister said there is no “hard evidence” that the female students were poisoned and added that “more than 90% of health problems have been caused by stress or It was invented”.
Everything suggests, on the contrary, that the poisoning campaign is a coordinated campaign for punish the students for their peaceful participation in the protests erupted starting from the middle of last September.
In February 2023, independent journalists outside Iran reported the story of an 11-year-old girl died after being poisoned at his school in Qom, but the authorities have denied the report. Even the parents of the little girl have referred to previous illnesses, but the doubt remains that they have suffered pressures to confirm the official narrative.
Amnesty International has received credible information about a Ministry of Health protocol ordering medical staff to attribute symptoms to gas attacks to stress problems.
Authorities also arrested a journalist who reported on the poisonings and summoned several others for questioning. Failure to stop the poisonings has generated growing criticism from the public opinion and the protests have been addressed by the authorities with the usual misure repressive.
In March, protests organized by teachers’ unions were violently dispersed. During the same period, videos circulated showing security forces officers in plain clothes and uniforms while assaulted the mother of one victimoutside a school in Tehran.
On April 15, security forces fired in Shahin Shahr, Esfahan province tear gas against parents, teachers and protesters who had gathered in front of the city’s education department building to protest the poisonings.
To shed light on this situation, Amnesty International deems it necessary a visit to Iran by an independent delegation comprising the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on right to health and representatives of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.