Protests Break Out in Iran 

Worried parents protested in Iran’s capital Tehran and other cities on Saturday over a wave of suspected poison attacks that have affected schoolgirls in dozens of schools, according to Iranian news agencies and social media videos.

The so-far “unexplained illnesses have affected hundreds of schoolgirls in recent months.” Iranian officials believe the girls may have been poisoned and have blamed Tehran’s enemies.

The country’s health minister has said “the girls have suffered mild poison attacks” and some politicians have suggested the girls could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups opposed to girls’ education.

Iran’s interior minister said on Saturday investigators had found “suspicious samples” that were being studied.

“In field studies, suspicious samples have been found, which are being investigated… to identify the causes of the students’ illness, and the results will be published as soon as possible,” the minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.

Sickness affected more than 30 schools in at least 10 of Iran’s 31 provinces on Saturday. Videos posted on social media showed parents gathered at schools to take their children home and some students being taken to hospitals by ambulance or buses.

The outbreak of schoolgirl sickness comes at a critical time for Iran’s clerical rulers, who have faced months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young Iranian woman in the custody of the morality police who enforce strict dress codes.

Reuters/Shakirat Sadiq