Iran will offer no leniency to "rioters", though the public has a right to demonstrate, the head of the judiciary said on Monday, following more than a week of protests.
The demonstrations began last Sunday when shopkeepers staged a strike over high prices and economic stagnation, but they have since spread to other places and expanded to include political demands.
"I instruct the attorney general and prosecutors across the country to act in accordance with the law and with resolve against the rioters and those who support them... and to show no leniency or indulgence," Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said, according to the judiciary's Mizan news agency.
He added that Iran "listens to the protesters and their criticism, and distinguishes between them and rioters".
Protests have taken place in 25 out of Iran's 31 provinces and affected, to varying degrees, at least 45 different cities, most of them small or medium-sized and concentrated in the west, according to an AFP tally based on official statements and media reports.
At least 12 people have been killed since December 30 in localised clashes, including members of the security forces, according to a tally based on official announcements, and there have been media reports of episodes of property damage in the west.
The Fars news agency said on Monday that "the trend observed on Sunday night shows a notable decrease in the number of gatherings and their geographic reach compared to previous nights".
Local media's accounting of the protests is not exhaustive, and state-run outlets have downplayed their coverage of the demonstrations, while videos flooding social media are often impossible to verify.
The national currency, the rial, has lost more than a third of its value against the US dollar over the past year, while double-digit inflation has been undermining Iranians' purchasing power for years.
The rial was depreciating again on Monday against the greenback after strengthening in recent days, according to the informal black-market rate, which stands at around 1.4 million rials, compared with about 770,000 a year earlier.
Publicly, officials have struck a conciliatory tone when it comes to protesters' economic demands, while vowing to take a hard line against any chaos and destabilisation.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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