Iran’s judiciary said Friday that about 100 people accused of having led violent antigovernment protests over fuel price increases had been arrested nationwide, and a top cleric said they deserved the “maximum penalty.”

The declaration by the cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami , leader of Friday Prayers, suggested the authorities intended to make examples of the suspects to help crush any remnants of the deadly protests, which upended life in dozens of Iranian cities and towns.

While Mr. Khatami did not specify if he meant that the suspects should receive the death penalty, the Kayhan newspaper, mouthpiece of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said they should be hanged.

“This is not a system that will be shaken by these stupid evils,” Mr. Khatami said, according to a translation by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency.