Chemical attacks on at least 16 schools in 7 cities

The deliberate poisoning of schoolgirls, which resumed after the end of the Iranian New Year holiday of Nowruz, has intensified. On 8 April, the government website Shabake Sharq wrote: "The chain of poisoning of schoolgirls continues.... The director general of security and public order affairs in Ardabil governorate announced: some 400 students were rushed to the hospital and are being monitored by doctors.... Before noon today, a number of students from Din and Danesh, Efaf, Meraj, Khalaban, Zaker, Dadman, Baharan, Sama and other schools in Ardabil were poisoned and showed symptoms of nausea and vomiting. 

The vice-president of the Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in Ahvaz was quoted by state media on 8 April, Hamshahri: "Today, 8 April, we have received reports of poisoning of female students in two girls' schools in the cities of Haftkel and Ahvaz". The government website Khabar Fori reported today that in Haftkel, pupils of the Hajar high school have been poisoned for the second time and 20 of them have been taken to hospital. Students at the Parvin Etesami and Bent Al-Hada girls' schools in Divandareh were subjected to a chemical attack and 15 students were taken to hospital. Students of the Fadak girls' school and another school in Naqadeh, as well as 20 students of the Khayyam girls' school in Pardis, Tehran province, were hit by poisonous gas. The families of the pupils demonstrated in front of the schools in Ardabil and Divandarreh hospital, chanting slogans against the regime. 

In these circumstances and in the fifth month of these serial crimes, the ridiculous justifications and contradictory statements of the regime's leaders and the security, political and propaganda organs continue. Hamid Kazemi, head of the 'Working Group for Investigating the Poisoning of Students' in the regime's parliament, was quoted by the state's online website, Etemad, on 7 April as saying: 'Some students may do such things out of malice, and it is necessary to form non-operational defences in schools to prevent such incidents. .... And I believe that in a fortnight we will be able to submit a report on this issue to the Majlis" (parliament). 

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, said that the aim of the mullahs' anti-human regime in committing this major and systematic crime is to confront the uprising and take revenge on the girls and women who are at the forefront of the struggle to overthrow this regime. She reiterated the need for the international fact-finding mission and relevant UN institutions to carry out independent investigations. 

In response to the poisoning of schoolgirls and threats by Khamenei and the head of the judiciary to increase compulsory veiling, young insurgents carried out 13 actions against the wall of repression. They attacked six Bassij militia bases in Karadj, Qom, Amol, Kuhdasht, Nochahr and Semnan. They also attacked with Molotov cocktails a religious seminary in Sepahan (Isfahan province) and two predatory banks of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards in Qom and Tehran. They also burned portraits of Khomeini and Khamenei in Tehran, Jondichapur, Sabzevar and Ardestan.