According to the Ministry of Interior, more than 100 people have been detained as a result of the events at schools around Iran. Some of those arrested are said to have had “hostile motives with the aim of creating fear among the population and the students”, the ministry further states.
The first alarms about suspected poisonings came in November and since then over 5,000 students have suffered from symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, headaches and difficulty breathing. The suspected attacks appear to have targeted girls and young women in particular. It, in turn, has been interpreted by many as a hard-line religious revenge campaign following calls for more freedom and rights for girls and women.
The alarm about the suspected poison attacks occurs in parallel with the nationwide protests against the regime in the wake of the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Zhina Amini last September.