[17] He campaigned on promises to restore the economy, improve rocky relations with Western nations, and prepare a "civil rights charter" if elected.

In domestic policy, he encourages personal freedom, free access to information, and has improved women's rights by appointing female foreign ministry spokespeople.

[29] His father, Haj Asadollah Fereydoun (died 2011),[30] had a spice shop in Sorkheh[31] and his mother lived in Semnan until her death in 2015 with her daughters and sons-in-law.

[41] 50 student-run organizations[42] as well as Shiraz University faculty professors asked Ali Akbar Kalantari to prosecute the case in separate letters.

[47][48] Based on a comment by Alireza Nourizadeh, some sources reported that he committed suicide "in protest of his father's close connection with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei".

[8] As a young cleric, Hassan Rouhani started his political activities by following the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the beginning of the Iranian Islamist movement.

[66][67] At the end of the war, Hassan Rouhani was awarded the second-grade Fath (Victory) Medal along with a group of commanders of the Iranian Army and the Revolutionary Guards.

In another ceremony on the occasion of the liberation of Khoramshahr, he and a group of other officials and military commanders who were involved in the war with Iraq were awarded first-grade Nasr Medal by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ayatollah Khamenei.

[3] After the Iran student protests, July 1999 he, as secretary of Supreme National Security Council, stated in a pro-government rally that "At dusk yesterday we received a decisive revolutionary order to crush mercilessly and monumentally any move of these opportunist elements wherever it may occur.

His leading role in the nuclear negotiations which brought him the nickname of "Diplomat Sheikh", first given to him by the nascent Sharq newspaper in November 2003 and was frequently repeated after that by domestic and foreign Persian-speaking media.

Heinonen, former senior IAEA official, said that Rouhani used to boast of how he had used talks with Western powers to "buy time to advance Iran's programme.

According to that proposal, a decision was made to establish a politically, legally, and technically efficient nuclear team with Hassan Rouhani in charge.

The team was delegated with special powers in order to formulate a comprehensive plan for Iran's interactions with the IAEA and coordination among various concerned organizations inside the country.

Therefore, on the order of President Khatami with the confirmation of Ali Khamenei, Hassan Rouhani took charge of Iran's nuclear case on 6 October 2003.

[16]: 138–140  Subsequently, negotiations between Iran and three European states started at Sa'dabad Palace in Tehran and continued in later months in Brussels, Geneva and Paris.

Rouhani and his team, whose members had been introduced by Ali Akbar Velayati and Kharazi as the best diplomats in the Iranian Foreign Ministry,[16]: 109, 141  based their efforts on dialogue and confidence building due to political and security conditions.

Rouhani was considered a leading candidate in the June election because of his centrist views yet close ties to Iran's ruling clerics and the Green Movement.

Rouhani ultimately won the election in a landslide, providing a ringing endorsement of his efforts to re-engage with the West and offer greater freedoms.

It deals with increasing the purchasing power of the public, economic growth, raising sufficient funds, implementation of the general policies of 44th Principle of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and improving the business environment in the short term.

[98]Rouhani's government appointed Elham Aminzadeh, Shahindokht Molaverdi and Masoumeh Ebtekar as vice presidents; as well as Marzieh Afkham, the first female spokesperson for the foreign ministry.

[99] In September 2013, eleven political prisoners were freed including noted human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh.

Iranian authorities executed 599 people during Rouhani's first 14 months in power, compared with 596 during the last year in office of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

She cited the increase in executions, Abdolfattah Soltani's hunger strike, and the continued house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi.

[102][103][104] In 2015, Rouhani appointed Marzieh Afkham and Saleh Adibi, as the first female since the 1979 (the second in history) and the first Sunni Kurd respectively, to hold office as ambassadors.

[115] On 3 January 2020, the second most powerful person in Iran, Qasem Soleimani, was killed by the United States, which considerably heightened the existing tensions between the two countries.

[127] The live translation of his statements included explicit mention of the Holocaust, leading to media reports that he had acknowledged its existence, in contrast to the persistent denial of his predecessor.

[131] Rouhani began his presidency in November 2013 with approval and disapproval ratings near 58% and 27% respectively,[132] according to Information and Public Opinion Solutions LLC (iPOS) which was assessing it on a quarterly basis.

[132] His job approval rose after Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, according to a survey conducted by IranPoll for the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies (CISSM), standing at 88% with a large majority (61%) expressing a "very favorable view" of him (up from 51% in July 2014) and a ±3.2 margin of sampling error.

The poll also indicated Rouhani would have a "tough challenge" in maintaining the support due to the fact that people had high economic expectations from the deal, and it could become his Achilles' heel.

He expressed shock over the hijab law approved by the Guardian Council which predicted severe punishment for those violating it, saying that it "aligns neither with the Constitution, nor with justice, nor with the Qur'an and Islamic culture.