FILE PHOTO: A young woman lies in hospital after reports of poisoning at an unspecified location in Iran in this still image from video from March 2, 2023. WANA/Reuters TV via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IRAN OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN IRAN. No use BBC Persian. No use VOA Persian. No use Manoto. No use Iran International./File Photo
Iranian security has arrested three female teenagers and two men, over their alleged involvement in the mysterious poisoning of thousands of schoolgirls in Iran. local media reported citing sources. Arrested from the southern city of Lar, the three students and two men are reportedly subjected to great pressure from authorities to confess carrying out poisoning attacks, a source told IranWire.
The source said that the five suspects were arrested “simply because they were protestors.” Moreover, it claimed that “a scenario was created to accuse them of being involved in the students’ poisoning.”
Up to 13,000 students are said to have had symptoms like nausea, dizziness, headaches, coughing, difficulty breathing, and heart palpitations, many of whom required hospitalisation.
On 7 March, the police chief of the province of Fars, where Lar is situated, reported the detention of five people. This included three women and two males, both of whom were in their 20s and 50s.
According to Iranian police spokesperson Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, the suspects threw Nitrogen in seven schools in the Larestan area as a “team,” poisoning 53 kids.
State media in Lar released a video on March 18 in which Setayesh Amiri and her father are described as the main suspects behind the case.
The females detained were Satayesh Amiri, Setayesh Darogheh, and Erfaneh Honar, both in the 10th grade, according to IranWire’s source. They all are in the same high school and are all 17 years old.
The two further suspects were named as Alireza Bagheri, a young man, and Ebrahim, Amiri’s father.
Multiple Lar schools were the target of chemical attacks on 3 March, the source told IranWire. Security personnel seized students’ cellphones, including those of the three females detained in the case. It was done to ensure that the students do not record videos.
Ebrahim Amiri was taken into custody later that evening during a raid on his home. Several hours later, Alireza Bagheri was arrested. Setayesh Amiri, during her compelled confession, referred to the young man as her friend.
The two claimed in the video that they poisoned pupils while filming them and then submitted the videos to the London-based Iran International news station.
