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.”

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.