Iranian officials use poison to play down protests

Scores of schools were targeted in several cities in Iran. Some 343 students were taken to hospital in the western city of Ardabil where 11 schools reported suspected poison attacks, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported citing a local official.

On Sunday, deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi confirmed that a spate of deliberate poisonings using “chemical compounds” had been reported at a number of schools in different cities since November.

Seven schoolgirls were admitted after falling sick in Esfahan, Mehr said, adding that 12 others had fallen sick in the city of Qom and more cases had been reported in the western city of Kermanshah.

Girls schools in at least three districts of the capital Tehran reported students feeling sick or being sent to hospital after smelling and inhaling a gaseous substance, the leading reformist Shargh newspaper said.

A number of videos shared on Twitter purported to show protests outside several schools since yesterday. In some of them chants of “death to the dictator” and “death to the child-killing regime” can be heard.

Women and girls have played a central role in the demonstrations and many have staged classroom protests rebuking the male clerics that run the country. Several teenage girls have been beaten to death by security forces, according to the United Nations.

The attacks have coincided with the biggest popular uprising against the Islamic Republic’s leadership since it was founded after the 1979 revolution.

The protests were triggered in September by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who was arrested for allegedly flouting Islamic dress codes for women.