Iran arrests 300 ‘insufficiently veiled’ women

Another 3,548 women have been given "warnings and Islamic guidance," without being detained, Ahmadi said.

Twelve men have also been detained for "not observing the proper Islamic dress code" by wearing tight pants or short-sleeve shirts, he said.

Every spring, there are calls by clerics for a crackdown, and the past two years have seen minor, localized sweeps. But this year's was the first since before Khatami's presidency to see so many arrests and had high prominence in the government media, warning women to adhere to Islamic dress.

Ahmadi said the sweep would go on "as long as necessary," but it was not clear whether it heralded an all-out, permanent campaign to bar looser dress codes.

One hard-liner cleric on Monday warned of a backlash. "In many cases, the use of force in the fight against social harms can backfire," the head of judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

Qom clerics called for crackdown
But many conservatives were applauding the crackdown, launched after a call from senior hard-line clerics in the holy city of Qom to tighten the reins.

"All are responsible towards the problem of inadequate dress," Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one senior Qom cleric, told newspapers.

Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister in charge of the campaign, said it would please the people by restoring social stability.

"People are unhappy with the social and moral status of the society. They expect that the fight against social insecurity be properly implemented," Pourmohammadi was quoted in the conservative daily Resalat as saying.

Hard-line lawmaker, Mohammad Taqi Rahbar, said the looser dress codes had prompted Iranian women and families "to cry out" for help. "Men see models in the streets and ignore their own wives at home. This weakens the pillars of family," he said.

Ever since Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005 elections, Iranians have been fearing a return to the prohibitions on "un-Islamic" dress, music, male and female mixing and the other restrictions from the revolution's heyday.

But criticism of the president has been increasing as prices for basic good like food and housing have increased in past months — despite his campaign promises to reduce poverty.

"The problem of our country is unemployment, rapid increase in the number of crimes and murders, not women's dress," said Sadeq Rowshani, a bank clerk.

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