As reported by “Students’ Union,” Sarina Mahmud Salehi, animation student at Vocational Training Uni. for female undergraduates, in Karaj, has been abducted by security plainclothes on Thursday night, March 2, 2023, after the news of chemical poisoning at the dorm of her university got released. According to this report, so far, there has been no update on the arresting organization and present status of the student mentioned above. On that note, suppression and arrests are still widely exerted upon the students in a manner that, according to the “Students’ Union,” in past weeks, many universities have become patrolling sites frequented by security forces. According to this source, “these forces interrogate students over a variety of excuses and it seems that they have no intention other than pure power display.” Moreover, the same report informs that at Gilan Uni., too, security forces patrol about in the libraries and study halls, confiscating student ID’s, ordering female students to follow Islamic dress code in a “derogatory and vulgar manner.” Poisoning of schoolgirls and female undergraduates during the past days have been carried out on a massive scale in various cities all over Iran, and only yesterday, 4th of March, dozens of other all girls’ schools in various cities have been targeted by chemical/biological attacks. While it has been at least three weeks (although some sources estimate the outbreak of chemical attacks to be three months by now) since the beginning of the chain poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran, Iranian authorities claim that, as of yet, there has been neither any update on the perpetrator(s) of these attacks, nor on the chemical substance used in them. According to reports on social networks, at least 45 all girls’ schools have been targeted by these chemical attacks on March, 4. In these reports, a list of 45 all girls’ schools attacked in 25 cities of Iran is published, and it is stated that “still, on media and social networks, new names and images of the chemical attacks against the all girls’ schools are being released”. Faraz Daily, a news agency based in Iran, too, has reported that on this day, 40 students of Ketabchi female vocational school, in Kashan, have been transferred to Shahid Beheshti hospital and some others to Naghavi Hospital after being poisoned.
The students under toxicity reported having smelled an odor resembling rotten tangerine and then developed symptoms such as nausea and vertigo. The same news agency has also reported attacks against three schools in Islamshahr, in Tehran Province. These attacks took place in the morning of the same day, March 4, following the chain poisoning of the students. These schools were Komeil (elementary), Ommeh-Abiha (senior school), and Khalij-eh Fars (elementary) in Islamshahr region. The same news agency reported that the poinsoned students were transferred to Imam Reza Hospital, in Islamshahr, yet hospital authorities have refused to give any answers to this agency’s reporter about the statistics of the poisoning references on that day and the number of the students transferred to that hospital. As declared by Qom University of Medical Science, 44 students of this city have been hospitalized and placed under care. Previously, certain Farsi-speaking media abroad had reported the death of a student in that city following the attacks; the official state media in Iran, however, rejected this news and declared that the death of the student in question was caused by renal infection. Moreover, as reported by Shargh, a newspaper based in Iran, to that date, over hundreds of students had undergone physical damages by these chain poisonings while their jointly developed symptoms were headache, vertigo, frailness, walking difficulties, and fatigue, to the extent that some parents have reported the continuation of such symptoms as vertigo and fatigue in the poisoned students even weeks after the incident. Even in case of the same chemical attack in Ahmadiyeh senior school, located in Boroujerd, they said their bodies were partially paralyzed. A physician at Ayatollah Boroujerdi Hospital, in the same city, said: “Whatever the cause of the students’ poisoning, it could not have been caused by inhaling carbon monoxide gas.” Two students from Panzdah-eh Khordad, another school in Boroujerd, also stated they had detected a small bomb-shaped object thrown into the school yard from outside the school and the substance discharged from it had resulted in their toxicity.
This is all while based on the same report by Shargh, “the poisoning of the students at schools and universities by an unknown gas has entered a new phase,” and also that, in face of such national emergency, not falling short of a operationally full-fledged and massively organized chemical attack, whose main victims are the most vulnerable segment of the Iranian society, that is, schoolgirls, still “the governmental authorities refrain from giving any comment on this incident whatsoever and the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education, both, have outsourced the release of information over this matter to authorities elsewhere, and the news received indicate the emergence of a critical situation in Tehran’s emergencies and medical centers.” In addition, the same report states “doctors and nurses are afraid of disclosing any information about the victims transferred to their relevant hospital. The majority of nurses all reluctant to speak out and doctors, too, only give formal brief comments on what is unfolding. They worry having to go through potential penal measures by their administrators in case of information-disclosure. Even though, some say that it has been officially announced to them not to give any comment or disclose any information; orders said to be issued by higher authorities, directly from the Ministry of Health. None of the authorities of this ministry, too, are willing to give an interview and account for what actually has taken place and confine their commentary to quoting what was recently said by the minister of health himself;” the problem, though, is that such a mass-scaled information-carpeting by the authorities and medical staff, paired with the security measures taken against students like Sarina Mahmud Salehi, herself exposed to these attacks, and also regarding the highly contradictory nature of the comments given by authorities at various levels, irresponsible as always, can more than anything be indicative to a security-related decision within the state as a whole, for these chemical bioterrorist attacks to be carried on, obstacle-free, and in the shadow information withholding, suppression, and censorship.
