Over 1,000 Iranian Students Stricken With Food Poisoning—Right Before Mass Protest

The night before another wave of anti-regime protests, 1,200 Iranian university students were stricken with “vomiting, severe body aches, and hallucinations” because of food poisoning, the Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Students at Kharazmi University and Arak University experienced the symptoms last week, according to Iran’s national student union. At least four other universities are also reporting mass food poisoning, the Telegraph reported.

“The severity of the students’ condition has sent them to the hospital,” the student union wrote on the instant messaging site Telegram.

Students had planned the protests in honor of Iran’s Student Day.

The poisonings come as Iran faces some of its largest anti-regime protests in years, many led by students. Protests began in September after the Islamic dictatorship’s morality police killed a young woman for wearing an “improper” hijab. While one Iranian official said Sunday that the regime had shuttered the morality police in the wake of the protests, Iranian state television has denied the claim.

Iranians on Monday launched a national labor strike in opposition to their country’s Islamist regime, Reuters reported.

The national student union scoffed at Iranian authorities’ claim that “water-borne bacteria” caused the food poisonings, saying that the government intentionally poisoned the students to thwart protests.

The poisoned students have few places to turn. University clinics have “closed or suddenly run out of electrolytes” used to treat dehydration from food poisoning, the Telegraph reported based on the student union’s statement, while “female students have been told to remain inside their dormitories.”

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