TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s judiciary warned that those behind a recent wave of anti-government protests could expect punishment “without the slightest leniency.”
What began earlier this month as demonstrations against the high cost of living boiled over into a broader protest movement that represented the gravest challenge to the leadership in years.
The protests have abated under an internet blackout that left the country largely cut off from the outside world.
“The people rightly demand that the accused and the main instigators of the riots and the acts of terrorism and violence be tried as quickly as possible and punished if found guilty,” judicial chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei was quoted as saying by the official Mizan online news portal.
He went on to say “the greatest rigor must be applied in the investigations,” but insisted that “justice entails judging and punishing without the slightest leniency the criminals who took up arms and killed people, or committed arson, destruction, and massacres.”
