A judge said on Tuesday that confiscating the assets of exiled Iranians would reduce the strength and effectiveness of their protests outside the Islamic Republic’s embassies abroad.

“When an expatriate sees that a home, shop or any other asset they owned in Tehran, Isfahan or any other Iranian city has been seized, anti-Iran gatherings outside embassies of European and American countries clearly become emptier, weaker and more hopeless,” said the head of Isfahan province’s judiciary, according to judiciary-linked Mizan News.

Asadollah Jafari described the seizures as a judicial tool to counter what he called “the enemy’s economic and media war,” The Caspian Post reports, citing Iran International.

Iranian judicial authorities have been ordering the seizure of assets belonging to dozens of people, many living abroad, over allegations of cooperation with Israel and actions against national security.

Since the January protests, Iranians abroad have held regular demonstrations outside Iran’s embassies and consulates in Europe, North America and elsewhere, often in support of protesters inside Iran and against the Islamic Republic’s crackdown.

Jafari said the confiscation of assets belonging to expatriates are aimed at having a “deterrent effect.”