Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – April 7, 1999

Mr. Hossein Marashi came and reported that Mr. [Morteza] Moqtadaei, [Prosecutor General], had said that he had still not signed the rejection of Mr. Karbaschi’s appeal and that the Public Relations Office of the Tehran Justice Department had lied. He also said that Mr. [Mohammad] Mohammadi Gilani, [Chief Justice of the Supreme Court], had likewise denied the statements made by the Justice Department’s Public Relations Office, which had officially announced that the Supreme Court had refused to apply Article 15 in connection with this case. It became clear that last night the Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office had prevented the printing of Zan newspaper. Faezeh had said that if no official notice of the newspaper’s suspension was issued, they would proceed with printing it.

Engineer [Seyyed Reza] Sajjadi, [head of the Office for Industrial and Scientific Studies of the Presidency], and two of his colleagues from the group responsible for acquiring sensitive technologies came. They presented a program for coordinating and promoting the marine industries and expressed their appreciation for and sought my assistance based on my effective measures and support in the past in establishing major marine industries, such as oil platforms, subsea pipelines, offshore drilling, port construction, shipbuilding, fisheries, and ship management.

Mr. Akhavi Mohammad, [head of the Central Council of the Executives of Construction Party], came. He followed up on the issue of [Mr. Gholamhossein] Karbaschi’s conviction and the [suspension] of Faezeh’s newspaper [= Zan], and gave an account of parts of what he had said in Mina, in a gathering of people and at the [Leader’s] Hajj Mission, which had angered them. He had answered questions about the Executives of Construction Party and, regarding the Leader’s position, had said that at the beginning, He had supported the Executives of Construction Party’s decision to put forward and announce an electoral list, but after its announcement, He had changed His position and prohibited the ministers from membership, while still insisting that the rest of the party members continue their work. He did not consider this change of position justifiable, and it had caused anger, intimidation, and threats from some people. The Kayhan newspaper had also published another part of his remarks in a distorted form, which Mohammad had denied.

In the afternoon, Mr. [Mahmoud] Mohammadi Araqi, [head of the Islamic Propaganda Organization], came. He gave a report on the state of the mourning associations and the dispatch of religious propagators during the month of Muharram. He asked me to encourage them at future ceremonies. In the world news, Javier Solana, NATO Secretary General, announced that Serbia would not accept a unilateral ceasefire unless Slobodan Milošević accepted the Rambouillet agreements. The bombing has been intensified.