Seyed Mohammad Khatami -
"Extremists who make a living creating tension should be dismissed from
influencing the social arena."
A number of families of imprisoned journalists met with Seyed
Mohammad Khatemi, former president, yesterday (Sunday) to express their
concerns, amongst other things regarding the large number of reporters arrested
and the harsh indictments against them. This particularly as according to claims
by Mohammad Javad Larijani, head of the Judiciary's Committee for Human Rights,
no journalist is in prison in the Islamic Republic as a result of attending
protests.
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi (center) and Mohammad Khatami (right)
appeared
at a memorial for Iran-Iraq war heroes (the Bakeri brothers) last week
During this meeting the former president of Iran reiterated "We
will never compromise what we believe and feel to be the desires of the people
because of false assumptions and premises." He went on to thank all those who
are marched peacefully on the 22nd of Bahman and are demanding the release of
political prisoners, particularly imprisoned journalists.
He noted: "Of course calm does not mean that there is no disagreement or that
those who want to express themselves are not allowed to do so. What we are
saying is that tension and conflict are not suitable."
The head of Baran Foundation stated: "In essence what we
reformers have requested and continue to request is that everyone needs to live
and abide by constitution's framework." He continued to note: "Of course living
within the framework of the constitution does not mean not having the ability to
criticize the laws, as these laws are defined by humans and are not divine.
Nevertheless, we must all have respect for and act in accordance to the
constitution."
He reiterated "The boundaries associated with freedom are delicate. Our
constitution has many golden articles. Article 56 The Right of National
Sovereignty given by God to all people is a very important one. Another article
states that freedom and security are equal in rank."
Khatami added: "In the course of history, sometimes we have truly forfeited our
security as a pretext for freedom. By security I don't just mean that of the
rulers, but our national security and the security of our entire society. Often
security has been trampled upon as a pretext for freedom. However, our
constitution states that no one can use security as an excuse to destroy the
freedoms that belong to the entire society such as social, intellectual and
political freedom. It also states that no on can use freedom as an excuse to
harm our national interests and security."
He continued: "Worst than the aforementioned, is the role of the media that
instead of promoting our culture, defending our legitimate freedoms and our
right to exist, acts against our freedom and national security. They lie
comfortably, they insult and they are protected, without anyone being aware of
who their protectors are."
Our former president noted :"This year those who were sympathetic to our
country, even if they were protesting or had issues they wanted to express, were
all present on the 22nd of Bahman and said that this revolution belongs to
everyone and everyone should participate and that inappropriate slogans are
unacceptable. They didn't want to provide excuses to anyone and in all honesty,
they all came and remained peaceful."
Khatami continued: "They beat people, insulted, vilified and committed many
other unacceptable acts. To investigate and identify those who have committed
such heinous acts is not a difficult thing. Is it not possible to find out who
did such things? I was there and so were many others. Every where we went, even
when we were passing by in a car we were greeted with kindness from all those
present. Everywhere we went, in limited numbers they were insulting people and
attacking them with batons and sticks."
He added: "If we were to compare, would it be obvious who the majority was? Of
course this majority was asked to come to the streets poised and peaceful, even
though they were treated unfairly, degraded and insulted. The truth is our
people showed how mature they are and we find it very unfortunate that so many
of our men and women were injured by these violent seeking thugs."
He added "We would like to thank every single person in our country. We thank
those who are not in agreement with us but came out peacefully. We thank those
who had problems and objections but behaved in a poised manner, enduring insults
and beating without giving excuses to anyone for bad behavior. We thank all
those who said we support Iran and the rule of law and if we have any objections
we will present them at the right time and place, because we believe in
returning to the standards defined by our constitution and our revolution."
Khatami reiterated "One of our main concerns has been that the
Islamic Republic support the people's right to determine their own destiny and
who they want to vote for in the same manner that it supports Islamic beliefs.
Elections are a very important element of our society. We need to work together
to adopt mechanisms, practices and procedures so that elections do not become
the source of rumor and discussion in our society and to ensure free and healthy
elections that further attract the society, particularly the elite to the
Islamic Republic. We also need to create a free and happy environment based on
the foundations of our constitution, honoring people's freedom. This will
benefit everyone."
He reiterated: "We all want a powerful and progressive regime, particularly one
that people feel respected in. We have always expressed our opinions and will
continue to do so. This includes the fact that we should not forgo people's
rights. Our people should never get the feeling that they are insignificant or
that attention is not being paid to them. Our goal is to defend the reasonable
demands and rights of our people and rest assured that we will achieve this
goal."
Seyed Mohammad Khatami noted: "Defending people's rights, our national interests
and honoring people's right to freedom, is our doing. We will never compromise
what we believe and feel to be the desires of the people because of false
assumptions and premises. At the same time, we believe that we must look for
solutions that benefit everyone."
Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani:Power Not Used to Defend Rights Is
Illegitimate
Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani, one of the senior religious
figures, in a meeting with a group of reformist youth after listening to their
remarks in response to their questions thanked them for caring about the country
and said: "Power is a tool to defend people's rights and if rights cannot be
defended based on that power then that power will lose its legitimacy even if
some would try to make up legitimacy for it."
Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani
He added: "The reason that today in our society those who
genuinely criticise government's shortcoming are being treated as enemy is
clear; it is because for them the power is the goal not the religious teachings
and employing them. Therefore for reaching their goal they are suppressing their
critics who have stepped forward out of care and justify this in any way
possible. This is not a news issue and throughout the history there are many
similar cases."
Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani regarding the term "absolute" used in describing
the power for the Supreme Leader said that there has been wrong interpretations
regarding this term and it does not mean that Supreme Leader's power is above
the law and the lawmakers did not have such intentions but rather it means that
although it is the highest power of the establishment but still it should be
within the boundaries of the law.
Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani stressed that the biased interpretations of the
constitution has created the current crisis in the country and emphasised that
most of the problems were created because of these wrong interpretations and the
most pronounced example of that is the unconditional oversight of the appointed
bodies on the most important affairs of the country like the domination of the
Guardian Council on the most important issues like the elections. He added that
those taking advantage of these kind of unjust powers are responsible in front
of God and in the eyes of the nation and on the judgment day they will be held
accountable for their actions and violating people's rights.
