Grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini: Only Mentally Deviant People Would Want Such a Regime That Tramples People's Rights Underfoot

Following are excerpts from an interview over the phone with Hossein Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, which aired on BBC Persian on January 31, 2009.

Interviewer: Hossein Khomeini, a relative of Ayatollah Khomeini, is an opponent of the regime in Iran. He is the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic. Before the show, I asked him over the phone: In your opinion, is the regime ruling Iran today exactly the same Islamic Republic that Ayatollah Khomeini wished for?

Hossein Khomeini: No, we certainly did not want such a thing. The religious people did not want this, and the non-religious did not either. Only people who are mentally deviant could possibly want such a thing. Nobody else would want a regime that, in the name of Islam, challenges all the rights of the people, and in many cases, tramples those rights underfoot.