Protests spread to at least eight other cities throughout Iran on Friday as a high-ranking imam called for the severe punishment of protesters.
Scores of students were arrested. The total was not known. In Tabriz, student Web sites reported the number so far might be up to 135.
The Amir Kabir University Web site in Tehran reported that 50 students had been arrested in Yazd and 105 in Sabzehvar.
Among those arrested in Tehran were children of prominent reformist politicians, including two members of parliament, Ahmad Shirzad and Mohsen Safai Farahani.
Shirzad, in a letter to Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, said he had witnessed arrests being made based on an illegal court order allowing the police to take in anyone they found suspicious, the Iranian Student News Agency reported.
Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, former head of the judiciary, said at Friday prayers in Tehran that the protesters should be punished “quickly . . . seriously and ruthlessly.”
