Videos circulated on social media show law enforcement officers arresting, beating and tear gassing protesters - university students and teachers - who protested in several Iranian cities
against the mysterious gas poisoning of female students
in 25 of 31 Iranian provinces
.
The demonstrators shouted:
"Freedom of life and of women"
, "a school is not a battlefield" and "
down with the system that kills children
".
In recent days
there have also been cases of poisoning in some dormitories for female students in Tehran, Isfahan, Orumiyeh, Tabriz, Karaj and Mashhad
.
The Iranian Deputy Interior Minister, Majid Mirahmadi, announced the first arrests in relation to numerous cases
of students who have been intoxicated at school since November after inadvertently inhaling gas.
"Based on the intelligence and search measures of the intelligence agencies, some people have been arrested in five provinces and the relevant agencies are conducting a thorough investigation," Mirahmadi said on state TV.
About 5,000 Iranian schoolgirls have become intoxicated after inadvertently inhaling toxic gas at school. Mohammadhassan Asafari, an Iranian parliamentarian
working for a commission of inquiry into the cases that still remain mysterious, announced that students
in about 230 schools in 25 different provinces of the country
were involved .
The episodes have been going on since November and many male students and teachers have also been intoxicated.
Protest demonstrations were held in various cities of Iran due to the intoxication of schoolgirls.
After a summons by trade unions and activists, many teachers held demonstrations in Sanandaj while similar protests were held in front of the education ministry offices in Shiraz, Babol in Mazandaran province and Karaj in Alborz province.
This was announced by the agency of Iranian human rights activists Hrana.
According to many activists, the poisonings are revenge on the part of the government due to the participation of many female students in the anti-government demonstrations and against the compulsory hijab that erupted in September after the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old of Kurdish origin who lost her life while in custody in Tehran for not wearing the headscarf properly
.
According to a professor of the seminary of Qom, the city where the first cases were registered, an extremist religious group could be responsible for the act because it opposes the right to education for female students.