Some 1,200 Iran students "poisoned" night before planned anti-regime protests

More than a thousand Iranian university students appear to have been poisoned the night before they were due to attend mass anti-regime protests being held across the country last week.

According to ISNA, an Iranian news agency, 1,200 students at Kharazmi and Ark universities were taken ill with vomiting, severe body aches and hallucinations. Similar illnesses were also reported at least four other universities, The Telegraph reports.

The Iranian science ministry confirmed that the students were struck by food poisoning, which has led to students protesting by dumping their food onto pavements. Video footage posted online over the weekend showed row upon row of plastic bags containing canteen food placed on the ground outside Ark university.

The Iranian regime has been accused of deliberately poisoning students to thwart their latest protest, while Iranian authorities have blamed accidental food poisoning linked to an outbreak of water-borne bacteria in the country.

“Our past experiences of similar incidents at the Isfahan university negates the authorities' reason for this mass food poisoning,” a statement from Iran’s national student union said.

The student union has also claimed the universities’ clinics have closed or suddenly run out of electrolytes which has made it harder to treat dehydration - a common symptom of food poisoning. Meanwhile, female students have been told to remain inside their dormitories at some universities.

Iranians have also called for an intensified three-day period of national strikes and protests which is due to begin later this week.

It came as an Iranian state broadcaster denied reports that the regime had scrapped its morality police, the religious enforcers whose killing of 22-year-old student Mahsa Amini triggered the mass protest movement.