Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – July 4, 1981

We did not have a public session. I went to the Majlis at around nine-thirty. I waited for some time for the Rules Committee, but the required quorum was not reached. Mr. [Ahmad] Beheshti, the representative from Fasa, asked for help regarding his son, who had been his bodyguard and had been arrested on charges of collaborating with the Mojahedin. Mr. Ansari, the representative from Nishapur, had also brought in his resignation. The reason was pressure from some of the people in his constituency against him because he had not attended the vote on Bani-Sadr’s political incompetence. Everywhere, people had put such individuals under pressure, and the situation had become increasingly difficult for them.

In the afternoon, Engineer [Mehdi] Bazargan, Dr. [Yadollah] Sahabi, and Dr. [Kazem] Sami came to seek a solution to this matter and to reduce the social pressure. They expected Imam to say something or for me to speak favorably about them. I told them that Imam had left the way open and suggested that they explicitly declare their position toward the counter-revolutionaries. They agreed to write something. The horrific crime of the bombing of the Islamic Republican Party office and the martyrdom of so many revolutionary forces, whom they too had held in high regard, had placed their consciences under pressure.

The Libyan ambassador came and announced Libya’s position in support of continuing the war with Iraq until Saddam was overthrown, and complained about our lack of attention to them. They feel that we do not trust them. The support of Arab countries in the war is important to us because it prevents the war from being portrayed as an Arab-Persian conflict, as Iraq wants.

I attended the memorial ceremony that Imam had held for the seventy-two martyrs at Martyr Motahari Mosque. A huge and enthusiastic crowd had gathered. We were guests for iftar at the home of our neighbor, Mr. Faqihi. He is one of our companions from before the Revolution.