Iranian university students in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered harsh criticism of the country's direction, local media reported yesterday, an unusually frank discussion showing the concerns many feel over the Trump Administration's pullout from the nuclear deal with Tehran and Iran's battered economy.
One student inparticular offered a list of problems confronting Iran and directly asked Khamenei, whom hardliners view as second only to God, how he would respond to them.
While concerns regularly come up during the annual audiences that Khamenei holds during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, that these criticisms received publicised attention in Iran's tightly controlled media is telling. Already, farmers and truck drivers have been protesting and on strike in the country.
At Monday's audience with Khamenei, university student Sahar Mehrabi read a speech in which she recounted the "numerous crises" now facing the country. Among them, she listed Iran's "intensified systematic inequality in social classes, the decline of public trust and the increase in environmental crisis and shantytowns." She also mentioned high unemployment, the challenges faced by minority groups and the way hardline element's within Iran's judiciary and security system "fabricate security cases in a delusional way" to target activists.
"What answer does Your Excellency have in response to questions, criticisms and protests," she asked.
In his own speech, Khameneiacknowledged many of the shortcomings, saying that "removing problems is not as easy" as the students expect. He said one solution can be the "injecting of revolutionary, motivated and committed young people into the governmental apparatuses". "Growth of the society requires freedom of expression," Khamenei said.
Khamenei's Twitter account also acknowledged the criticisms.
Iran is a Shia theocracy overseen from the top by Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state. However, it also holds regular elections for its presidency and Parliament.
