More than 5,000 schoolgirls in Iran are said to have been poisoned since the end of November. The first suspects are now being arrested in five provinces. If convicted of "corruption on earth" they face the death penalty.
After the mysterious mass poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran, the government in Tehran has reported the first arrests. Arrests were made in five provinces on the basis of "findings by the secret services," Deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi said on state television. He did not provide any information on the identity of those arrested, the circumstances of their arrest and their alleged role in the poisoning.
Mass poisonings at girls' schools in Iran have been reported again and again for the past three months. The authorities suspect an attempt to exclude girls from schooling. The backgrounds have not yet been clarified. Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a "severe punishment" for the poisoning on Monday. Also on Monday, Iran's judiciary chief Mohseni Edschei announced that people arrested in connection with the poisonings should be tried in court for "corruption on earth", which would carry the death penalty.
According to the reform-oriented newspaper Etemad, dozens of schoolgirls in the eastern city of Kuchan were again hospitalized on Monday after inhaling "unpleasant smells". More than 700 similar cases had been reported in the southwestern province of Khusestan on Sunday. According to a parliamentary inquiry into the wave of poisoning, more than 5,000 schoolgirls in 25 of the country's 31 provinces have been poisoned since the end of November.
