News / Politics

President Raeisi: Schoolgirl poisonings ‘crime and inhumane act'

Sunday, 05 March 2023 6:03 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 05 March 2023 10:22 PM ]

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi addresses a cabinet session in Tehran on March 5, 2023. (Photo by president.ir)

President Ebrahim Raeisi says the issue of schoolgirl poisonings across Iran amounts to a "crime and an inhumane act" committed by the enemies against the nation.

“The enemy’s new conspiracy of creating fear in the hearts of students… and their parents is a crime and an inhumane act,” Raeisi said in an address to a cabinet session on Sunday.

The president ordered Iranian officials to swiftly probe into the case and inform people about its whereabouts to allay their concerns.

He emphasized that the move is “another link in the chain of the enemy’s plots” which has been carried out to create chaos in the country, manipulate public opinion, and instill fear among the students.

The Iranian chief executive stressed the importance of finding the main perpetrators of the act and dealing with them seriously.

Since November 2022, some Iranian students have reported symptoms of poisoning while in school. The outbreak started in Qom before expanding to other cities.

In most cases, students suffered respiratory problems, nausea, fatigue and dizziness, while some were hospitalized.

Officials say poisonings part of enemy’s hybrid war on Iran

Iran’s president and foreign minister say the mysterious poisoning of schoolgirls in several cities is in line with a hybrid war being waged on the country by the enemies.

On Friday, President Raeisi announced that he had tasked the ministers of intelligence and interior with pursuing the poisoning cases.

“Through its hybrid war, the enemy sought to create despair among the people. And recently through its psychological war… the enemy sought to create stress and fear among students and parents so as to spark riots,” he said.

Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also said the country has recently been targeted by an intensifying media campaign to deflect attention from the unrest and internal crisis plaguing the Israeli regime.

Kanaani, however, stressed that concealing the truth will not save the Israeli regime from its doomed future and collapse.

In recent months, Israel has been hit by massive and sometimes violent protests against the far-right cabinet headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israelis are angry at his policies, particularly his so-called judicial reforms.

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