Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – March 9, 1983

I stayed at home until 9:30. Writing the backlog of memoirs took up the time. Then I went to Parliament. Opponents and supporters of the budget were speaking. I chaired the last hour of the session. At noon I also had several meetings. In the afternoon, the Board of Directors held a meeting. Members of the Islamic Propagation Organization came. They gave a report on their activities. I also spoke about the importance of this kind of non-governmental religious outreach. Before this meeting, Mr. [Ahmad] Jannati spoke about the need for more contact between us and the Guardian Council.

After the meeting, Messrs. Abaei, Jafari, Vaezi, and Mousavi Tabrizi came and spoke about the situation of the Qom Islamic Propagation Office and sought solutions for the disagreements between the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom and some of the seminarians. We discussed how to respond to Mr. Azari Qomi's statements. Mr. [Mohammad] Emami Kashani came, and we talked about the Administrative Justice Court, obtaining land from Parliament for Shahid Motahhari School, Friday prayers, and his house next to Parliament.

At night I watched the film presented by Baghdad Television about Operation Valfajr and the Iranian prisoners in Iraqi custody, whose video cassette they had brought. I was deeply affected; the scenes were very disturbing. I went to sleep late, upset.

The news coming from the Non-Aligned Conference shows that the atmosphere of the conference is against us; they portray Iraq as peace-loving and us as warmongers. The Soviet bloc and the American bloc at the conference have the same position on this issue.