Female students at Tehran Polytechnic University, where students protested against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a visit last December crying 'dictator go away' and throwing firecrackers, are staging a major protest against new regulations enabling police as of 21 April to arrest women who do not abide by the Islamic dress code. A group of 700 female students organized a rally on campus and signed a letter to the dean calling the new rules "an offence to the dignity of women" and accusing him of "wanting to extend to academia the sexual apartheid imposed by the government on Iranian society."

Authorities immediately reacted on Thursday withdrawing the students' university ID cards which are mandatory to access campus and classes.

The students will now have to face a disciplinary commission which will decide whether they will be allowed to continue their studies or be expelled.

On Wednesday, Iran's police chief, Gen. Ahmad Moghaddam, said that women who do not wear the veil and don't abide by the Muslim dress code "are tools of the enemy, who tries to destroy the system by spreading a cuture which goes against Islamic values."