We just published a post by Andreas Moser a few days ago, questioning UNESCO’s decision to award the hosting of the 2010 World Philosophy Congress to Iran. Today, UNESCO announced its decision to back off Philosophy Day in Iran.
The news piece in New York Times goes:
“The United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization decided Tuesday to pull the plug on another embarrassment to its reputation, dissociating itself from this year’s celebration of philosophy, to be held in Iran in less than two weeks.
Unesco has been celebrating World Philosophy Day since 2002, but an agreement made quietly in 2008 to host this year’s event in Iran became extremely controversial, given Iran’s record of repression and censorship after disputed elections in 2009. Academics vowed to boycott this year’s event, scheduled for Nov. 21 to 23, and European nations, joined by the United States, urged the organization’s new director-general, Irina Bokova, to cancel the event.
A Paris-based event for Philosophy Day is expected to go ahead as scheduled on Nov. 18, which Ms. Bokova intends now to be the main celebration.
Western diplomats said that they had first raised the issue with Ms. Bokova early this year, when the deal with Iran became more widely known. This spring, Unesco said the event would go ahead as scheduled. On Tuesday Ms. Bokova announced that the organization would dissociate itself from any related events in Tehran.
There was no immediate comment from Iran about the Unesco pullout. But there were indications that Iran’s state-supervised press was attempting to gloss over Unesco’s absence. A report by the semi-official Mehr news agency, for example, said that besides the “gathering which will be held in Iran for the International Day of Philosophy, UNESCO will hold various events at its headquarters in Paris.”
As diplomats and nongovernmental organizations built up a better file on the case over the spring and summer, they pointed to the arrests and deportations of notable Iranian academics after the elections and to evidence that the event was being run by harder-line voices in the complicated Iranian system.
France was particularly involved in trying to convince Ms. Bokova to cancel the event, and was joined by other European Union countries in a démarche to Ms. Bokova, whose predecessor, Koichiro Matsuura, had made the deal with Iran in 2008 when Tehran offered to host this year’s event.
A senior Western diplomat pointed out that the decision to hold the day in a particular country was in the power of the director-general and that Unesco’s executive board had never been consulted on the issue.
One letter earlier this month to Ms. Bokova from the American ambassador to Unesco, David T. Killion, pointed to reports that the authorities intended to use World Philosophy Day for political purposes, while Iranian officials said in October that Western social and human sciences were dangerous for Iran. The Iranian minister in charge of science, research and technology announced the freezing of any new academic courses in Western disciplines, including philosophy, until their content could be reviewed to ensure that they conformed to Iran’s religious values.
Another senior Western diplomat said that Ms. Bokova had done the right thing by canceling the event and trying to maintain a dialogue with Tehran, but should have acted sooner. A quicker decision farther away from the event itself might have spared embarrassment both to Unesco and to Iran, which the West is trying to engage in serious talks about nuclear enrichment and regional security.
“The event in Iran was completely inappropriate given the events that took place after the 2009 elections,” the diplomat said. “There was a contradiction between Unesco’s ambitions and goals and those of philosophy itself, which depends on the right to think freely.”Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian philosopher who was jailed in 2006 and now teaches at the University of Toronto, was instrumental in organizing an academic boycott of the Tehran event and wrote to Ms. Bokova urging her to reconsider. He pointed out that President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had installed a hardline politician, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, whose daughter is married to the son of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as head of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy.
World Philosophy Day began in Paris but has been hosted since in Chile, Morocco, Turkey, Italy and Russia, with subsidiary events the same day in many other countries.”
The Levant 
This is great news. Thanks to everyone who let UNESCO know of their lack of understanding for their initial decision!
Dear Andreas Moser,
“World Philosophy day” in Iran is considered as a conference for specialists and the people
who are interested in philosophy, and a it doesnt not considered as a political issue. So, in our eyes to say
“Because of some problems ,discussions and debates mainly in politic this conference must not be held in Iran.” doesnt sound a logical phrase.
Any one can make a big list, which based on that for some similar reasons that you claimed such a conferences shouldnt be held in so many countries, included many western countries for violating many human right cases and the problems and debates about that.
It is certain that we know such a argumentation, baseles, I should say the same is true for Iran.
We know it totally an acadimic work, and not else.
Do I make mistake?whether have you another type of reasons besides what did you claim?
Bests,
F.Didehvar
By the way, what did you do had no result in your wish, but it probably makes some
deficiency in scientific matters. As persian poet Nima Yushij said in his poem:
We dont know our way totally so we destruct it(meaning).
In persian:
“Raahe khod raa hame nashnaakhteyim,
Tishe bar raahe khod andaakhteyim.”
Having academic healthy relation, make a common language and a common logic in
thinking matters. Each step in this way is a step toward peace (I guess our common goal).
Let open the ways to this peaceful solution for peace.
Farzad Didehvar