Schoolgirl poisoning attacks rattle an aready shaken Iran, targeting of female education suspected | | AW

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : The first cases emerged in late November in Qom, some 125 kilometres southwest of Iran's capital, Tehran.
50% : "This is a very fundamentalist thinking surfacing in society," said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran.
48% : It is winter in Iran, where temperatures often drop below freezing at night.
48% : Already, parents have pulled their students from classes, in effect shuttering some schools in Qom in recent weeks, according to a report by Shargh, a reformist news website based in Tehran.
40% : At least one case followed in Tehran, with others in Qom and Boroujerd.
38% : Attacks on women have happened in the past in Iran, most recently with a wave of acid attacks in 2014 around Isfahan, at the time believed to have been carried out by hard-liners targeting women for how they dressed.
38% : She cited a supposed communiqué from a group calling itself Fidayeen Velayat that purportedly said, "the study of girls is considered haram" and threatened to "spread the poisoning of girls throughout Iran" if girls' schools remain open.
36% : Over the past three months, hundreds of young girls attending different schools in Iran have become overpowered by what are believed to be noxious fumes wafting into their classrooms, with some ending up weakened in hospital beds.
32% : The reported attacks come at a sensitive time for Iran, which has already faced months of protests after the September death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the country's morality police.
32% : The poisonings come as getting verifiable information out of Iran remains difficult given the crackdown on all dissent stemming from the protests and internet slowdowns put in place by the government.

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