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Live Report: Surge in chemical gas attacks by Iran’s regime as popular protests escalate

By Mahmoud Hakamian
Poisoned student in Harsin - Kermanshah Province - Iran - April 16, 2023
A Naseri School student poisoned in Harsin, Kermanshah Province, western Iran - April 16, 2023

Latest update – 10:00 pm CET

More cities across Iran are witnessing a continuation of horrific chemical gas attacks targeting mostly innocent schoolgirls. Parents and locals in different cities are protesting these aggressions against their children and holding authorities responsible. Regime officials, however, constantly claim that they have no lead in finding the perpetrators behind these attacks. The Iranian people are finding this hard to believe considering all the regime’s strict security measures and the vast number of security cameras installed throughout their cities.

People throughout Iran continue to specifically hold the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responsible for their miseries, while also condemning the oppressive the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij units, alongside other security units that are on the ground suppressing the peaceful demonstrators.

Protests in Iran have to this day expanded to at least 282 cities. Over 750 people have been killed and more than 30,000 are arrested by the regime’s forces, according to sources of Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 675 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK.

Members of MEK Resistance Units inside Iran marched in the streets of four different areas of Tehran and the cities of Shiraz, Bandar Abbas, Hamadan, and Chalus on April 15 to protest and chant anti-regime slogans against the ruling theocracy. Their slogans included:

“Poisonings should be responded with measures against the mullahs’ regime!”
“Down with the oppressor, be it the Shah or [Khamenei]!”
“Freedom will come with the motto of ‘we can and we must!’”
“Democracy and freedom with Maryam Rajavi!”
“Down with Khamenei! Hail to Rajavi!”
“The world should know that Massoud Rajavi is our leader!”
“The National Liberation Army of Iran is our final response [to the regime]!”
“Khamenei, you murderer! We will bury you!”
“We are the MEK, and we are in a struggle against the [mullahs’ regime]!”
“We swear on the blood of our compatriots that we will stand to the end!”
“The MEK are present in every street and alley!”
“With or without the hijab, we are heading for a revolution!”
“No to monarchism! No to [mullahs’ regime]! Democracy and equality!”
“No to the crown! No to the turban! The mullahs’ time is up!”
“Poverty! Corruption! High prices! We will fight to overthrow the regime!”

Reports from the city of Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Kurdistan in western Iran, indicate that regime operatives launched a chemical gas attack targeting the all-girls Nasibeh School, the Sherafat School, and the Khadijeh Kobra School on Monday morning. A number of students are in dire condition.
The Iranian people and local activists are describing these attacks as “organized” by the regime’s security forces, including the IRGC.
Similar gas attacks and poisonings are being reported from other cities, including:

  • The all-girls Shahed School in the Abiyari neighborhood of Urmia, northwest Iran
  • The all-girls Mohammad Bagher School in Mahdasht, Alborz Province, west of Tehran
  • The Aseman School in the Za’faraniyeh district of Tabriz, northwest Iran
  • The all-girls Fajr, Esmat and Sharaf schools, and the all-girls Shahed High School in Bukan, northwest Iran
  • The Hajar School in Divandarreh, western Iran
  • The Jafar Sadegh Intermediate School in the District 4 area and the Malakzadeh Elementary School of Karaj, west of Tehran. A number of the students in the Malakzadeh Elementary School fell unconscious, according to reports.
  • The all-girls Farhang Intermediate School in Ravansar, western Iran. At least two students were transferred to medical centers.
  • The Parseh School in Isfahan, central Iran
  • The all-girls Mo’alem Intermediate School in Kermanshah, western Iran

Regime operatives launched a chemical gas attack targeting the all-girls Setayesh High School in Tehran’s Persian Gulf district on Sunday morning. A number of students were in dire condition as a result. School officials were keeping the kids inside, according to reports. Similar gas attacks and poisonings were reported from other cities, including:

Parents and locals in the city of Ahvaz, the provincial capital of Khuzestan, rallied outside the governor’s office protesting the recent chemical gas attacks targeting schoolchildren in this and other cities across the country.

Iranian opposition coalition NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi condemned the misygonist regime’s ongoing “deliberate government-organized” chemical gas attacks targeting schools across the country.

“The mullahs’ misogynous regime in a deliberate government-organized crime has engaged in chain poisoning of students in girls’ schools in different cities, which has resulted in the poisoning of many students and their hospitalization. The crime is seeking vengeance over the leading role of valiant girls in the uprising. It supplements the work of the regime’s guidance patrols,” the NCRI President-elect explained.

People are protesting in the streets of Dehloran in Ilam Province, western Iran, on Monday night following reports of recently detained locals going on hunger strike. These detainees are being held in central detention center of the Ilam Province Intelligence Department.

Locals in the Mehrshahr district of Karaj, a large city located west of Tehran, and the Ekbatan district of Tehran began chanting anti-regime slogans on Monday night, including:
“Down with Khamenei!”
“Khamenei is a murderer! His rule is illegitimate!”
“We swear on the blood of our compatriots that we will stand to the end!”

On Monday, retirees and pensioners of the regime’s telecommunications industry in Ahvaz and other cities rallied to protest their low pensions and poor economic conditions. These rallies were also held in Isfahan, Tehran, Bojnurd, and Kermanshah, Zanjan, and the Alborz and Golestan provinces. This continues previous rallies held during the past few weeks in Tehran and other cities across the country.

In the past few years, retirees across Iran have been protesting to their deteriorating living conditions, especially as the government refuses to adjust their pensions based on the inflation rate and fluctuations in the price of the rial, Iran’s national currency.

In further reports of protests by people from different walks of society in Iran on Monday, farmers began rallying outside the local governor’s office in Isfahan demanding their fair share of water for their lands and crops.

Nurses and medical staff members from across Qazvin Province held a gathering on Monday outside the local governor’s office in Qazvin, northwest Iran, protesting the regime’s unjust policies that are delaying and decreasing their paychecks and pensions.

In the city of Bukan in northwest Iran, local activists say the IRGC was flying helicopters over the city on Monday as authorities are very concerned about popular protests in response to the regime’s ongoing chemical gas attacks targeting schools.

And in Tehran, protesters wrote “Down with Khamenei” on a large billboard in the capital’s Modarres Highway in the hours after midnight local time.

Retired employees of the state media network are protesting their poor living conditions due to the regime’s destructive economic policies, or lack thereof.

Protesters in the city of Sari in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, attacked a base of the regime’s IRGC paramilitary Basij force. The Basij are the first force dispatched by authorities as the regime enforces crackdown measures against popular protests across the country.

Retirees and pensioners, along with workers of the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Company, were protesting their poor living conditions due to the regime’s destructive policies. This gathering was held in Shush, southwest Iran, on Sunday. Similar rallies were held in the cities of Ahvaz, Shushtar, Isfahan, Kermanshah, and Babol.

Retired steel workers also gathered on Sunday to protest poor living conditions and regime officials’ refusal to address their demands. This rally was held in the western districts of Alborz Province, located west of the country’s capital Tehran.

Pensioners and retirees are among the worst-hit segments of Iran’s society. They depend on government stipends to make ends meet, but the regime has refused to increase their pensions in correspondence with growing inflation and the depreciation of the national currency.

The government has long provided many hollow promises of increasing pensions. It was also supposed to settle unpaid pensions remaining from previous years. So far, it has yet to deliver on both demands.

Interestingly, the regime’s own media reported that The Social Security Investment Company (SHASTA), the financial institution that is supposed to fund retirees, has seen a significant increase in its profits in the past years. However, these profits have yet to materialize in the lives of pensioners and retirees.

Nurses and medical staff from across the city of Qom in central Iran rallied outside the Qom University of Medical Sciences on Sunday protesting their economic woes and demanding answers from regime officials.

Students of Social Sciences at the University of Tehran began protesting the regime’s increasingly oppressive hijab regulations on Sunday. Similar protest rallies were reported in other cities, including Rasht.

The protests in Iran began following the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the city of Saqqez in Kurdistan Province, western Iran, who traveled to Tehran with her family, was arrested on Tuesday, September 13, at the entry of Haqqani Highway by the regime’s so-called “Guidance Patrol” and transferred to the “Moral Security” agency.

She was brutally beaten by the morality police and died of her wounds in a Tehran hospital on September 16. The event triggered protests that quickly spread across Iran and rekindled the people’s desire to overthrow the regime.

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Mahmoud Hakamian
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