TEHRAN President Mohammad Khatami underlined that criticizing the government will help the system to flourish and that if the officials are not questioned on their performance, corruption may brew. The president made the remark in a meeting with the managing directors, editors-in-chief and representatives of country's print media held at the Tehran Conference Hall here yesterday. The people and the print media should supervise the performance of the government and state organizations and even help to formulate the policies, he stressed.

However, the president added, such criticism should be within a certain framework and the print media should consider the fact that the values respected by the people should not undermined. The print media should act within the framework of law and should be tolerant of each other, the president said, adding that the press should also make the people ready to tolerate each other.

All people should obey the laws of the land, whether they are in favor of or against the freedoms stipulated in the Constitution, he added. Even those opposing the essence of freedom have the right to speak out; however, society needs order and Constitution serves as the basis for order in our society, the president further said. The society envisioned by our constitution is not a single-voice society; it's rather a multi-voice society within which there is freedom of thought; this is the spirit of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, he added.

He also noted, Differing thoughts can be suppressed for a while, but that does not eliminate diversity, the suppressed thought would go underground. On dangers of having underground thoughts, the president said that would lead to a social explosion. The head of the High Council for Cultural Revolution rejected the notion that diversity of thoughts is a detriment to security. Limiting freedoms, he added, is rather what undermines security.

If we allow different voices to be heard, underground resistances would undoubtedly come to an end, or at least would drop in intensity, Khatami said. The president further stated that if diversity of thoughts are tolerated, the interest in foreign media would drop, and that, he said, would strengthen national security. Khatami however, drew a distinction between the desired freedom and liberalism, stating that the Western liberalism and freedoms advocated by it conflict what the Iranian society aims for.

The president also expressed understanding about the worries of a group of the revolution loyalists who see the diversity of thoughts as a threat to the revolution. Khatami termed the worries sacred, but added that freedom and tolerance were amongst the goals of the revolution, and that the revolutionaries are expected to tolerate the opposition. Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ataollah Mohajerani, his deputy for press affairs Ahmad Bourqani as well as representative of the press guild, Eftekhar Jahromi, and representative of Women Journalists Association, Jamileh Kadivar, delivered a speech at the meeting.

In a short time given to the pressmen, few managing directors the country's print media were able to speak about the present situation of the print media and their problems. However, it was expected that at the meeting between the president and the personnel of the print media, the first after the taking office of President Khatami in May 1997, more pressmen would have the opportunity to speak about the problems facing the country's print media as well as their expectations.