US Denounces Poisoning Of Schoolgirls In Iran, Demands Action
After the worst single day of gas poisonings in Iranian girls' schools, Washington has declared the issue “abhorrent" and called on authorities to put an end to the horror.
After the worst single day of gas poisonings in Iranian girls' schools, Washington has declared the issue “abhorrent" and called on authorities to put an end to the horror.
On Wednesday, almost 30 schools around the country saw hundreds of schoolgirls become the latest victims of an unknown gas being used in schools apparently to suppress support for the revolution.
In a briefing on Wednesday, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said the reports on the poisonings are both “disturbing” and “concerning”.
Hundreds of schoolgirls - who have been at the forefront of anti-regime protests - have been hospitalized in various cities across the country since November 30 when the first case of a mysterious poisoning was reported in the religious city of Qom.
Price called on the Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate the poisonings. “It is incumbent on Iranian authorities to respond … [and] put an end to these reported attacks … [and] to hold accountable those who may be perpetrating this,” added Price.
He added: “Women and girls everywhere have an innate right to an education, and education is a universal human right. It is a right that women and girls in Iran should have … It is essential to advancing women’s economic security and to realizing gender equality.”
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, a man wanted by Interpol for the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994, said Wednesday that no chemical agent responsible for the poisonings has been found, and the culprits are yet to be apprehended.
He failed to address claims on social media that women dressed in strange attire had been seen walking into school campuses, suggesting a clear campaign to target the schools coming from regime officials.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said at a press briefing Wednesday afternoon that so far no one has been arrested for the mysterious poisoning of girls at schools across the country and no chemical agent responsible for the poisonings has yet been found.
The IRGC-linked Fars News Agency had reported the arrest of three individuals earlier on Wednesday.
Vahidi who was assigned by President Ebrahim Raisi at the cabinet meeting Wednesday morning to urgently investigate the incidents also denied that the poisonings, apparently by toxic gases, have caused paralysis in any of the students. He claimed that the symptoms in over 90 percent of the students were induced by stress.
On Wednesday at least 26 more schools were attacked including over a dozen in the capital Tehran, six in Ardabil, two in Kermanshah, and one in Esfahan. In several cases security forces and police used violence against outraged parents who chanted slogans against authorities outside schools.
It is shocking for the public that the government has so far made no arrests or identified suspects, as well as providing extra security around schools. Later on on Wednesday, the United States urged Iran to investigate the poison attacks, a US State Department spokesperson said.
In a tweet Wednesday, prominent journalist Abbas Abdi said the attacks would have already ended if authorities had been as vehement to catch those responsible for the attacks as they are in silencing the poisoned girls’ families.
Children’s parents shouting “Death to the child-killing regime” and “Death to the Dictator” outside a girls’ school in Tehransar in a western suburb of Tehran.
Hundreds of schoolgirls have been hospitalized in various cities across the country since November 30 when the first case of a mysterious poisoning was reported in the religious city of Qom. Attacks have been widespread in Qom and Boroujerd in western Iran so far where tens of schools have been affected. The first attack in Tehran was reported Tuesday. Boys’ schools were attacked only in a few rare cases, including a primary school in Parand Town in the south of the capital, on Wednesday.
Authorities who at first dismissed the reports of poisonings in Qom and attributed the incidents to “children’s pranks” or other reasons including faulty heating, have now admitted that at least 1,200 students were affected by the mysterious fumes.
As many Iranians have said on social media that the attacks are the work of religious zealots who want to prevent girls from attending school, hardliners have tried to blame regime opponents.
Tehran municipality’s Hamshahri newspaper, a hardliner mouthpiece, dubbed the poisoning incidents “A Poisonous Project” and suggestively printed images of opposition figures including the former crown prince Reza Pahlavi, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) leader Maryam Rajavi, and activist Masih Alinejad on its frontpage Wednesday. “By using the students’ poisonings, anti-revolutionaries are trying to cause anxiety among people,” the newspaper wrote.
Schoolgirls at a Tehran hospital Wednesday suffering from short breath and other symptoms including lethargy.
Prince Reza Pahlavi in a tweet Tuesday accused the regime of responsibility for systematic attacks on girls’ schools. Alinejad has also accused the regime and said it is taking revenge on schoolgirls for their participation in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.
Many parents say on social media that they will not send their girls to school to keep them out of harm’s way but Alinejad has called on male students to boycott classes in their schools and universities on Saturday in support of schoolgirls.
State media and hardliners blame the MEK, which has a long record of terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1980s, more often than anyone else. “I have no doubt that the MEK or other hostile and anti-revolutionary groups are involved [in the poisonings],” lawmaker Ahmad Rastineh said Wednesday.
Another lawmaker, Mohammad-Tala Mazloumi, also blamed the MEK and similar groups, which he said aim to disgrace the Islamic Republic and its educational system, while also pointing a finger at Israel.
Companies from the UK, Canada and Russia are cooperating with an Iranian telecommunication company to track protesters and access the content of their calls or messages.
In October, American non-profit news organization The Intercept leaked a series of internal documents and communications, including emails sent by representatives of the Iranian and foreign companies, providing details on what appear to be plans to develop and launch an Iranian mobile network, including subscriber management operations and services, and integration with a legal intercept solution. The system, called Integrated system to query telecom customer Information – known by its Persian acronym SIAM – allows Iran’s Communication Regulation Authority (CRA) to enforce the Iranian government’s requirements to filter Internet content through a spyware and track the data of customers.
The CRA is tasked with executing governmental powers, supervision, and executive powers of Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. The regime’s CRA regulations state that all telecom operators in Iran must provide the CRA with direct access to their system for retrieving user information. Justified under its own broadly defined “Legal Intercept” provisions, the CRA aims to use this sophisticated system to store user information, allow or deny a user’s access to mobile services, and view historical voice, SMS, and data usage.
Ariantel is an Iran-based Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), the primary source of the emails. Telinsol is a UK-based satellite communications consultancy which appears to have conducted international business transactions with vendors on behalf of Ariantel. PROTEI is an international telecommunications systems vendor founded in Russia which was selected by Ariantel to provide core network components to the company in support of user authentication, data management and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), SMS delivery, and mobile network signaling. And PortaOne is a Canada-based mobile business and support system vendor, which was selected to provide mobile account creation, service provisioning, billing, and customized integration with Iran’s Legal Intercept system.
Iran International’s Mojtaba Pourmohsen has contacted all the foreign-based companies but none of them provided any comments about their cooperation with Iranian firms. He went to the addresses registered for the London-based company, but they turned out to be fake or old, strengthening the speculations that these firms can be cover companies belonging to people close to Iranian authorities. The manager of the company is identified as Iranian national Nima Eskandari, who, according to the leaked emails, was in correspondence with Ariantel and the Russia-based company about their services.
The emails and other documents revealed the level of sophistication Iranian authorities sought to conduct surveillance operations and control access to mobile information and communications. The software and services offered by the foreign-based vendors allow the CRA to integrate with mobile service provider systems inside the country, including the web service API that is called SIAM. It seems that Ariantel has deployed a fully operational mobile network in Iran, integrating with the CRA’s Legal Intercept system.
According to our sources, representatives from Iran’s main mobile service providers are likely attending the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, the largest and most influential event for the connectivity ecosystem. While the organizing body of the MWC Barcelona confirmed in response to Iran International's email that no delegation from Iran has been invited to this conference, exclusive information shows that four high-ranking managers of Iran's biggest service provider are participating in the event, being held from late February until March 2.
An informed source told Iran International that they applied for a visa through France to attend the Barcelona conference as independent individuals. The four Iranians are close to the company’s CEO Mehdi Akhavan Bahabadi, who is himself among the close circle of one of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s sons.
Iran’s biggest mobile companies, namely Mobile Telecommunication Company of Iran (Hamrah Avval) and MTN Irancell, are mainly owned directly or through intermediaries by Revolutionary Guards – or the IRGC – that is the Islamic Republic’s main force in quashing the ongoing protests across the country.
