Embattled Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has called on the Islamic republic's hardline camp to ditch its authoritarian practices and cede to his reform programme. "If we do not respect human dignity and rights, we can never reach economic justice," Khatami said in a speech to mark a national religious holiday. His declarations, made late Tuesday at the shrine of revolutionary Iran's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were on the eve of a holiday marking the death of Imam Ali, considered by Shiite Muslims to be the first successor to the prophet Mohammad.
Uhhh... Khomeini held the idea of personal freedom in contempt. He was a divine-right theocrat, too... |