Iranian police targeted protesters on Saturday as students and families took to the streets against the recent poisoning incidents at girls’ schools in the country, as the nationwide unrest continues.
Iran has been swept with protests, since the death of young Iranian Kurdish woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September following her arrest by the morality police for violating the Islamist dress code.
The protests, led by students in universities and high schools, have also included parents in recent weeks after hundreds of schoolgirls in Iran fell ill. Parents suspect schoolgirls are being poisoned by hard-line Islamists who oppose their right to education in the Kurdistan province (Rojhilat) and throughout the country.
On Saturday the police used tear gas and shotguns to disperse a crowd of parents and students chanting anti-government slogans in front of a education department in Shahin-Shahr near Esfahan, where 12 schools were attacked on 11 April, according to a representative of the district in the parliament.
The police have also reportedly used excessive force against protestors on Saturday in Izeh in the southwestern Khuzestan province and in Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdistan province.