Iran's cafe owners have demanded for hookah rights, Iran's satellite Press TV reported on Wednesday.

"Dozens of cafe owners have staged a demonstration in front of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) to protest against a ban on their activities" to sell hookah to their customers, the report said.

The demonstrators, who were from the Iran's central city of Isfahan, said that their cafes had been closed by authorities despite an official order by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that they could be reopened.

"Police and health authorities in Isfahan are preventing us from doing our jobs despite a presidential order," a demonstrator was quoted by Press TV as saying.

Reportedly, last year, Iran's police forced the cafes around the country to quit selling hookah which was circulated as a part of social health crackdown.

Since some of the owners refused to follow the police order, their jobs were temporarily stopped.

According to Press TV, five years ago the parliament passed a legislation against the popular Iranian pastime after the Ministry of Health cautioned about the associated health hazards, but the legislation was not seriously implemented until last year.

Hookah is an eastern smoking pipe designed with a long tube passing through an urn of water which cools the smoke as it drawn through, also called hubble-bubble water-pipe, and it attracts customers to cafes in traditional Iranian restaurants.

Iranian health officials, however, have continued to warn smokers about the dangers of smoking it, which is said a hookah is equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes at one time.