IRANIAN teachers protested on Tuesday against suspected poisonings targeting schoolgirls.

Angry over what they described as the government’s slow response, teachers took to the streets in a number of Iranian cities, including Ahvaz, Isfahan, Karaj, Mashhad, Rasht, Sanandaj, Saqqez and Shiraz.

The protests come as an activist group and a prominent lawmaker put the number of those reporting poisoning symptoms into the thousands across hundreds of schools.

Human rights activists in Iran said at least 290 suspected school poisonings have happened over recent months, with at least 7,060 students claiming to be affected in at least 99 cities and 28 provinces.

Prominent lawmaker Mohammed Hassan Asefari told the ISNA news agency that as many as 5,000 students have complained of illness in 230 schools across 25 provinces.

Meanwhile authorities began filing charges against journalists, including editors at the reformist newspapers Hammihan and Shargh. 

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency said the journalists and a number of activists also charged have been spreading “unreal claims and totally false” statements about the attacks.

It remains unclear who is behind the poison attacks but some protesters have raised the possibility that religious extremists may be targeting schoolgirls to stop them from receiving education.