Iran’s education minister has denied knowledge of security agents using a school as a detention place for protesters arrested during November’s unrest.
A video circulating in social media shows security agents transferring detainees with shackled hands and feet from one vehicle to another at the courtyard of a school, said to be a girl’s school called Qods in Tehran.
The minister, Mohsen Haji-Mirzaee told reporters in Tehran the video was being checked for accuracy, but denied it is from the latest protests. He also said the principle of the school has denied his institution was used as a detention location.
Irrespective of when the agents used the school for detaining people, the minister did not explain why security personnel and detainees were filmed in a school and what they were doing there.
تبدیل دبستان دخترانه به بازداشتگاه رژیم ایران با توجه به بالا بودن شمار بازداشتشدگان در #اعتراضات_سراسری مردم #ایران و نبود جا در زندانها از مدارس دولتی به منظور بازداشتگاه استفاده میکند.#iranprotest pic.twitter.com/xbLB1gddYa
— مانيتورينگ حقوق بشر ایران (@Iran_HRM) November 23, 2019
Haji-Mirzaee also denied exact knowledge of how many school students have been killed during recent protests. A local reporter asked him that many teenagers were seen in the protests and at least two are reported killed.
Information coming from family members and acquaintances in recent days say Amir-Reza Abdollahi 13 in Eslamshahr near Tehran and Nikta Esfandani 14 were killed in protests.
The education minister told reporters he has no information and also claimed he has received no reports about teenagers having been arrested. Most protesters seen in films and photos are young, some appearing to be school-age children.