Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – April 11, 1999

The Board of Trustees of the Islamic Azad University held a meeting. We made decisions regarding the establishment of university branches in Zabol, Qorveh, and Amol, as well as increases in the salaries of staff and faculty members.

Mr. Ali Khatami, [head of the President’s Special Inspection Office], came with Mohsen. He gave a report on its performance and sought my advice. I said that the important work of the Inspection Office during my tenure had been to resolve problems affecting major national activities in production, development projects, and bureaucracy, such as the cement and steel industries, pressurized irrigation, increasing oil and gas production, resolving airport problems, municipal public transportation, and so on, whose effects are lasting today.

In the afternoon, Mr. [Gholamreza] Forouzesh, [member of the Tehran City Council], came. He said that they had held the first informal meeting of the Tehran City Council and that the government was in the process of approving regulations that would pave the way for supervising the councils. He expressed his distress over the treatment of Faezeh and said that he himself had also been summoned to court over a contract concluded during his tenure as Minister of Jihad [Construction]; although the matter was not important, he was upset by the action itself. He wanted to know what would happen to Mr. Karbaschi and said that the Ministry of Jihad was not in good condition and that dissatisfaction and stagnation prevailed. On behalf of those responsible for the funeral arrangements for Martyr [Ali] Sayyad Shirazi, they asked me to tell the Imam’s household to permit Sayyad to be buried at the Imam’s mausoleum.

At night, I was a guest of the Leader. Regarding the issue of Zan newspaper and Faezeh, I criticized His action. He said that he had ordered its closure to prevent harm to the reputation of both me and himself, as well as to that of the Revolution. He also said that the way the issue had been raised during Friday prayers by Messrs. [Mohammad] Yazdi and [Mohammad Ali] Movahedi-Kermani had not been appropriate, and it was agreed that while the newspaper remained suspended, further repercussions would be prevented.

Regarding Mr. Karbaschi’s case, as had been agreed the previous week, He had spoken with Mr. [Morteza] Moqtadaei, [Prosecutor General], to find a way to prevent the prison sentence from being carried out for the time being.

Regarding the release of [Helmut] Hofer, the German businessman, He insisted that the treatment of this person and Mr. [Kazem] Darabi, who was imprisoned in Germany, should be the same and that no concessions should be made to the Germans.