More schoolgirls poisoned in Iran

In a still from a user-genenated video posted on social media on Jan 8, a banner hangs on a bridge over a busy highway in Tehran, displaying a caricature of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a slogan in Farsi that reads “In the name of the girls of the land of the sun”. (Photo: UGC via AFP)

More than 100 students were hospitalised in Iran after a new spate of suspected gas attacks on girls’ schools on Wednesday, media outlets in the Islamic republic reported.

Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported in the past three months among schoolgirls across Iran, in what one government official has said could be an attempt to force the closure of girls’ schools.