A number of Iranian officials have claimed that there is a conspiracy behind the serial acid attacks on women that shocked the city of Esfahan and horrified citizens, leading to mass protests and eventually the detention of several journalists.
“The acid attacks in Esfahan are a game and a conspiracy,” said Ayatollah Naser Makaram Shirazi. He said that Iran’s enemies wanted to “deviate [public] thought into another direction” after parliament presented a bill to offer legal protection to "vice" groups that take it upon themselves to enact the Islamic teaching of “enjoining good and forbidding wrong.”