As unrest grips Iran’s schools, the government is going after children

Across Iran, schoolgirls have defiantly taken off their headscarves, stomped on pictures of the supreme leader and chanted for freedom, producing some of the most iconic images from the country’s anti-government uprising. Now, the state is coming for them.

Many families fear sending their children to school, afraid they could be surveilled, beaten, detained or disappeared, rights groups and Iranians told The Washington Post. Iran’s clerical leaders are betting the crackdown on schools will help quell the unrest, now in its seventh week, but risk further radicalizing the public against them.