TEHRAN – In an address to a national summit on civil rights on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani underscored better employment as an instance of civil rights.

“For our youths, employment is the most important civil right,” the president said in the summit.

Rouhani honored a 2013 campaign promise last year, unveiling a “Bill of Rights” which, inter alia, highlights “appropriate employment” for all Iranians.

The bill has not been signed into law so far.

Unemployment has been a persistent concern for a large number of young, educated Iranians. Official unemployment rate put out in spring stood at 12.6 percent, 0.4 percent higher than the same period in 2016.

In an economic forum on Saturday, Vice-president Es’hagh Jahangiri characterized unemployment as a “super challenge” facing the country, putting the number of Iranians with no jobs at three million.

One prospering area to spur job growth, Rouhani noted, is the information technology sector: “The sector provides the opportunity to create jobs. An online start-up active in Iran has created 30 thousand jobs.

We are supposed to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the area of information technology.”

Rouhani also said his government attaches great importance to a “secure”, “healthy” and “cheap” cyberspace.

“However, we do not plan to sneak into people’s private lives. Such acts should be stopped,” he noted.

The president also voiced concern over the country’s environmental challenges, seeing it as an instance of civil rights. 

"As we are speaking here our schools are closed due to pollution," he said.

Air pollution has hit dangerous levels over the past days in Iran’s big cities, including the capital Tehran, causing the declaration of public holidays. He added that there is no way but improving industry, cars and petrol to counter the problem.

Elsewhere, Rouhani called on the youths to heed the details of the national budget bill for the next Iranian year (starting March 21, 2018). All bodies should report their budget spending, he noted.

On December 10, Rouhani presented the national budget bill to Majlis for ratification.

Commenting on a campaign against corruption, he said, “We cannot eradicate corruption unless people are able to monitor transparently what we are doing."

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“We cannot eradicate corruption unless people are able to monitor transparently what we are doing."

NA/PA