Tehran, 28 January (AKI) - Iran's most senior Shia clerics including the nation's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have decreed that women they will be punished under Islamic law if they don't wear the veil.

"The veil remains obligatory for all Iranian women and the Islamic Republic has the right to imposed this norm across the whole country," read the edict or fatwa, cited by the Digarban website.

"Any woman who rebels against this ordinance will be appropriately punished under Islamic Sharia law," continued the fatwa.

The edict was signed by Khamenei and other grand ayatollahs including Nuri Hamedani and Makarem Shirazi.

The fatwa comes after the moderate government of Hassan Rohani last September instructed the country's moral police to ease checks on clothing worn by women in public.

The hijab has been obligatory in Iran since the 1979 Revolution that brought the ayatollahs to power. Over the past decade especially, young Iranians have rebelled increasingly against the face-veil and other religious dictates.

Dozens of women have been arrested by the moral police in recent years, accused of violating Iran's dress code.