Khatami: Everyone must pledge allegiance to velayat-e faqih (mullahs' supreme leader)
- Citizens' rights only for those who obey Supreme Leader

The clerical regime's state television broadcast Khatami's speech in the western city of Hamedan in its midday newscast today, saying that the mullahs' president "emphasized that velayat-e faqih (regime's Supreme Leader) is the central axis of the state and that anyone who accepts the Constitution must also pledge allegiance to the principle of velayat-e faqih ." Khatami said such a person "would be 'one of us' and a citizen of the Islamic Republic and our regime is duty-bound to protect his legitimate rights."

The clerical regime's president who in his Tuesday speech in Hamedan had declared the full obedience of himself and his government to "His Eminence the Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei, made it clear today that those who refuse to accept the principle of velayat-e faqih are alien and deprived of their basic rights.

In the same speech, Khatami admitted to the growing opposition even within the ranks of the clergy to the velayat-e faqih and said: "Even within the system, there are religious scholars who either do not believe in velayat-e faqih or do not believe in it in this form." Khatami threatened these people and said: "If everyone wants to put his own views into action, then all hell would break loose. So let no one say that this theory (velayat-e faqih) reflects only the viewpoints of one religious scholar (namely Khomeini) or say that I am a scholar myself and I believe in something else. No, no, the baseline for order in the Islamic Republic is the constitution and everyone must pledge allegiance to the constitution."

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 29, 1999

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