During an address marking the 39th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, President Hassan Rouhani, in a nod to recent protests that rocked Iran, warned about the dangers of not listening to criticism about the state of the country. “The previous regime, which thought that its rule would be lifelong and its monarchy eternal, lost everything because it did not listen to the voices of criticism, advice, reformers, the clergy, elders and intellectuals,” Rouhani said while visiting the shrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which overthrew the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Rouhani continued, “The previous regime did not listen to the voice of people’s protests and only listened to one voice, and that was the people’s revolution. For a government that only wants to hear the sound of revolution, it will be too late. A government must listen to the voice of the people’s advice, demands, criticism and protests.”
