Ghodiyani and Rajai: The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist is Incompatible with Republic

Abolfazl Ghodiyani and Alireza Rajai, two reformist activists and political prisoners, in a statement emphasized that since the victory of the 1979 revolution, a deviation occurred in the true essence of the republic, which was institutionalized with the drafting of the constitution. They described the guardianship of the Islamic jurist as incompatible with the republic. In their statement, published on Sunday, October 8, in several media outlets, including the website Khabar Online, they stated: "The Islamic Republic is now struggling in the quagmire of crises" and "pretending to be calm and confident does not heal the countless ailments of this ailing entity." However, these two political activists noted that the current problems of the Islamic Republic have deep-rooted origins and that "the crooked foundation of this crisis-ridden building" began from the very first days after the 1979 revolution, "when the concept and reality of the republic were distorted and afflicted." In the statement, criticizing the alteration of the original constitution and the drafting of the Assembly of Experts version, which included the principle of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist, fundamentally incompatible with the republic, it was stated that from that time on, public will was ignored and subjugated in the Islamic Republic. Article 110 of the Islamic Republic's constitution, which grants unlimited powers to the "Wali Faqih," faced protests during the drafting of the constitution, but afterwards, criticism of this article was met with severe security responses. One of the main charges that led to the imprisonment of the two authors of this statement was "insulting the leadership." Ghodiyani and Rajai also described the necessity of oversight by a group of jurists over the mechanisms of the republic as "a kind of exclusive oligarchy of power instead of a republic" and wrote that in the Islamic Republic, "the republic has been increasingly crucified every day." Abolfazl Ghodiyani, a senior member of the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization, was arrested after the protests of 2009 and sentenced to five years in prison for "insulting the leadership" and "propaganda against the regime." He was later sentenced again in 2012 for "propaganda against the regime," initially to one year in prison, but this sentence was later increased to two years and 40 lashes. Alireza Rajai, a political activist from the so-called "National-Religious" faction, was arrested in 2009 and accused of "actions against national security" and "propaganda against the regime." He was eventually released in 2015 after serving six years in prison.