“Between 20 and 24 students are in jail. They have been arrested over recent months, notably for seeking to disturb the public order,” judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters.
His comments came two days after hundreds of people demonstrated at Tehran University in a major protest calling for the release of detained students and criticising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“A total of five people were arrested during the latest demonstrations. One student and four non-students were arrested and are accused of disturbing the public order,” said Jamshidi.
He did not specify when the arrests were made.
The intelligence ministry said last week it had arrested an unspecified number of people using “fake student cards to hold an illegal demonstration” at Tehran University.
There has been a string of demonstrations at Tehran universities in past months as students protest against the replacement of liberal professors, pressure on activists by the authorities and the detention of students.
The detention since May of three students from Tehran’s Amir Kabir University has become a major issue for the protesters.
The trio were given jail sentences of up to three years in October on charges of printing anti-Islamic images in four student newspapers — accusations they vehemently deny.
Reports said that students involved in Sunday’s protests also held large pictures of other detained students with the names Ali Nikounesbati, Ali Aziz, Yasser Goli, Hana Abdi, Ronak Safarzadeh, Hedayat Ghazali, Sabah Nassiri.
But it is not clear when they were arrested and their detention has not been officially confirmed.
