“NOT BE SPARED”
On Saturday, Khamenei said “a few thousand” people had been killed by what he called “agents” of the United States and Israel, and Iranian local media have reported multiple deaths among security forces.
Khamenei said authorities “must break the back of the seditionists”, as local media have reported thousands of arrests and rights groups have estimated up to 20,000 people have been detained.
On Sunday, Iran’s judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir reiterated that swift trials would be held, warning that some acts warranted the capital offence of “moharebeh”, or “waging war against God”.
“All those who played a decisive role in these calls for violence, which led to bloodshed and significant damage to public finances, will not be spared,” he said.
Alarm has grown over the threat of capital punishment against arrested protesters, even as Trump said Iran had called off hundreds of executions.
Analyst Arif Keskin cast doubt on Trump’s claim, saying “the Iranian leadership sees executions… as an effective tool to end protests, prevent them and suppress them”.
“For the regime, executions will carry short-term international costs but are seen as a long-term investment in domestic security,” the Ankara-based Iranian researcher and Middle East specialist told AFP.
“The risk, therefore, remains very real.”