IRNA CEO: Balance Between Independence and Freedom is a Fundamental Choice in Islamic Republic

The balance between independence and freedom is a fundamental choice in the Islamic Republic. The chief executive of the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) stated in a special visual program titled "Iran's Martyred Master" on IRNA Television: We must speak of the Constitution as the fundamental document of the Islamic Republic and the unified covenant between the Iranian government and nation. Article 9 of the Islamic Republic's Constitution, in which the acumen and wisdom of the eternal martyr, Shahid Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, is evident in its formulation, stipulates that between independence and freedom, there exists a kind of balance from the perspective of the founders of the Islamic Republic and from the perspective of the national covenant document between the Iranian government and nation in the post-Islamic Revolution era. Article 9, in my view, is among the fundamental principles that truly must be repeated, repeatedly emphasized, so that perspectives become clearer and everyone understands their own responsibility. Article 9 stipulates, in similar language, that no person or official has the right, in the name of Iran's independence and territorial integrity, to violate the legal and legitimate freedoms of the nation, and conversely, no individual from the nation has the right, in the name of freedoms, to violate the country's independence and territorial integrity. The slogans of independence and freedom did not emerge in the revolution's slogans in the colloquial sense of being "romantically motivated"—that is, it was not the case that some group desired them and proclaimed independence and freedom, and this became and remained a fundamental slogan; rather, these are the result of a need.

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