In footage released by Mizan, the judiciary’s official news agency, judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei tells a meeting of senior officials that the judiciary “should issue many more sentences,” both “regarding the confiscation of property and the issuance of death sentences.” His instruction: “Really expedite these.”

He brushes aside any concern about how it will look. There is no need to call it an “escalation,” he says; “the law allows you to do this.” And he tells them to announce the sentences publicly. He justifies it by pointing to what he calls an “all-out war” of “violence and rioting,” the regime’s standard language for protest. The remarks came in early April 2026, after a series of executions and weeks into the war that began on February 28.

Why it matters

Ejei was not speaking in the abstract. Over the following months, Iran’s courts moved quickly against those arrested in the January uprising. In one case alone, Isfahan’s “Alikhani Square” case, seven defendants were executed between July and October, two of them in public.

Three parts of his instruction stand out. Speed means less time for appeals, for lawyers to challenge evidence, and for international pressure to build. Asset seizures extend the punishment to families. And the demand to announce the sentences shows the point is not only to punish, but to be seen punishing. Together, they turn the courts into an instrument of wartime deterrence: a warning to anyone at home who might see the regime’s weakness abroad as an opening.

Footage: Mizan News Agency. English subtitles by Pasha Borjkhani.