16 June 2013

BBC profile of Iranian President-elect


Hassan Rouhani, 64, has been elected as the next President of Iran. He received an outright majority of the votes cast, thus avoiding the necessity of a runoff election between the two highest polling candidates.

For the BBC profile published online today see here.

One often senses a patronising attitude in the Western media that Iranian clerics live in their own intellectual cocoon and would not know much about the world at large. Interesting then that Mr Rouhani is said to be fluent in English, German, French, Russian and Arabic, and has a law doctorate from Glasgow Caledonian University.

The founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, studied Greek Philosophy in his early days and was influenced by the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato.

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