‘The Iranian regime is poisoning schoolgirls’

It's about the freedom for women and they know very well if women have freedom They have lost their control over their people. It is about fear. It's about control. It's just a clothing. It's just an instrument, a system they are using to control their people. In Iran, more than a thousand girls at several schools have been affected by unexplained illnesses since November. Well Iran's Supreme Leader, Alatoi Al-Haminay, has called the wave of suspected poisonings of schoolgirls an unforgivable crime.

While petitioning for the UN to investigate the poisonings, but yet still urging Iranian schoolgirls to overcome fear and go to school at any cost, is Dabrina Brett Tamraz. Dabrina spent her childhood and teenagers living in Iran under constant state surveillance. She's been arrested, interrogated numerous times while her father, brother and uncle have all been imprisoned by the government there. Well, she's been in the UK petitioning MPs to better protect women in Iran on International Women's Day and Dabrina joins me now. Very good morning. Good morning to you. Just give us a bit of an insight into what childhood was like for you.

It's been quite challenging. I was born into a Christian family in Iran growing up in a very strict Muslim country. So I was introduced to persecution from a young age. I have witnessed pastors and church leaders being murdered for their faith. I have seen my father being taken away into interrogations, not showing up for days. So many times we have been in fact got used to the fact that the Malayati police would stop us. The Ministry of Intelligence would follow us everywhere we went.

I've been monitored. They've been taking our pictures. They have been questioning us on a regular basis. So I grew up with massive control monitoring being watched and the spies in our church, in our ministries. And this was my experience getting to know persecution from a very young age to the point that the government closed down our churches. They arrested me, interrogated me for over a year, twice a week, every Sunday, every Tuesday. I had to go in for questionings.

And I was forced to cooperate with the government, providing them information about our church ministry, our pastors and leadership. I was expelled from university when I was 24 years old and I was forced out of the country in 2009. The rights of women in Iran came to the forefront of international news last year and there are now new protests because of these suspected poisonings in schools. To what extent does this international attention actually help women's rights in the country? We have to have more attention about this. There were more than 50 schools, over 1,000 schoolgirls who were poisoned in their classrooms where they should have been safe. This is nothing small. This is very serious.

And it's not the first time that Iran has dealt with protesters in such inhuman ways. We've seen last year's about food poisonous and if we do not pay attention, if we do not raise this issue in the Western countries, especially within UN and EU, they will continue with this injustice with such oppression. The fact is, for me, growing up, this kind of oppression, they were there and it had become normal. It was normalized for us to be arrested by the morality police. It was normalized to be mistreated as a woman in Iran, to be discriminated against. So if we do not raise that voice, if we do not make it public knowledge again and again, it will become another normality in Iran for another generation and this shall never happen. This should never happen.

I know that you were addressing MPs last night and you have got personal experience of being arrested yourself for wearing the wrong colour hijab or the wrong colour nail varnish. That's right. I have been arrested so many times on the street because I was wearing a bright jacket or bright nail polish or because my scarf was covering my hair properly or simply because I was walking down the street with my brother and we had to provide proof that we were siblings and not boyfriend and girlfriend. So I was there with leather skirt. I was first I was arrested first time I was seven years old, and the morality police told my mother that I should be wearing a job. She argued that I was only 17 and he insisted, well, I looked older and I will bring men to temptation if I didn't wear hijab. So it is absolutely ridiculous.

Well, what they are thinking and how they are thinking that a young girl, child can bring men into temptation that the colour of your clothes your makeup. And it's actually not about that. It is not about your clothes is not about your makeup. It's about the freedom for women. And they know very well if women have freedom, they have lost their control over their people. It is about fear. It's about control hijab.

It's just a clothing. It's just an instrument, a system they are using to control their people. And this is why women today are saying we don't want hijab because we want freedom. We want the right to choose the right to speak. And that's what it's about. Sabrina, it has been an extraordinary insight into what your life was like growing up and particularly what the rights are now for women living in Iran. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for having me. There will be lots of content today. The difficulty I find with International Women's Day is suddenly we have a day where we look at issues like this. Of course, it couldn't be more apparently clear what's particularly happening to those children in schools in Iran. The situation that Sabrina faced that many, many women face in parts of the world can't just be talked about on this day, but need to be scrutinised, examined, challenged every day.

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