Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged officials to “seriously pursue” cases of suspected poisonings at girls’ schools around the country, which left hundreds of students hospitalized and sparked nationwide anger.
Speaking for the first time in reaction to the spate of sicknesses, Iran’s head of state said they were a “big crime that can’t be ignored.”
“The perpetrators of this crime will have to be severely punished without mercy if poisonings are proved,” Khamenei said in a statement read on state TV on Monday.
Mass illnesses at mainly girls’ schools were first reported in November, sparking fresh protests months after an uprising erupted in September over the death in police custody of a young woman who’d been detained for allegedly flouting Islamic dress codes.
Officials have so far provided contradictory accounts of what’s happened, with a senior education official confirming last week that “chemical compounds” had been deliberately spread at the schools while the interior minister has insisted that official investigations haven’t yet determined the cause.
No one has been charged and state news agencies have given provided contradictory reports of arrests.
Dozens more schools have been affected since the weekend by what students have said is the presence of some sort of gas with a strong odor, leading to breathing difficulties, nausea and vomiting.
The cases followed the state’s deadly crackdown on the anti-government protests in which young women and schoolgirls have played a prevalent role, calling for an end to the male-dominated Islamic system that governs the country.
