More Female High School Students Poisoned In Iran

Just two weeks after the new school year began in Iran, more high school girls have been poisoned. This time, it happened in a girls' high school in west Tehran.

On Saturday, a video started circulating on social media, showing students from Ashura High School in the Sahr-e Qods district of Tehran rushing out of their school with worried parents, onlookers, and ambulances present.

The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said many of the sick students had to be taken to hospitals urgently.

The poisonings have been happening mainly in girls' schools across Iran since last November. They began during Woman, Life, Freedom protests and have been going on until April 2023.

The first case was reported in the city of Qom, and then it spread across the country with many students ending up in hospitals, and at least one death.

Some believe regime hardliners or religious extremists might be behind the attacks. They might be doing it to punish girls who are speaking out against the regime during protests. Some even call these attacks "state terrorism."

The government, though, is trying to make it seem less serious, without pursuing the case or detaining any perpetrators. They say students get sick from stink bombs and pepper sprays, which some students use to disrupt classes.