Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has called on Iranians to speak out to defend their rights, while calling on the powerful security establishment to "reduce interference" in people's lives and "let them mind their business".
In a December 19 speech that marked one year since he launched a landmark Iranian bill of rights, the president, re-elected with a landslide in May this year, said: "We need to work to make citizens' rights a culture."
"People want the government to leave them alone," Rouhani, a centrist cleric, added, in relation to the bill which is meant to guarantee freedom of speech, protest, fair trials and privacy.
Since the overwhelming vote for Rouhani to serve a second term, which was a severe blow to hardliners, some voices in reformist media in Iran have criticised the president for not securing greater social freedoms. The judiciary, Revolutionary Guards and other institutions in Iran remain the clear province of the hardliners and do not answer to the president.
Rouhani has come out against strict controls on the internet in Iran that, for instance, block Twitter and Facebook. Reuters reported that he has also made a point of opposing intrusive background checks on students by security officials, a practice that has seen some banned from continuing their studies.
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