Media Releases

Iranians worldwide connect via the Munk School’s Global Dialogue on the future of Iran

May 13, 2013

TORONTO, ON – The inau­gur­al event of an unprece­dent­ed project launched this week at the Munk School of Glob­al Affairs in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. On May 10 and 11, 2013, the Glob­al Dia­logue on the Future of Iran (orga­nized by the Munk School with the sup­port of the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tion­al Trade Cana­da) embarked on an effort to dra­mat­i­cal­ly open up polit­i­cal space for con­ver­sa­tion among Ira­ni­ans on the future of Iran.

With a sig­nif­i­cant online pres­ence lever­ag­ing cen­sor­ship cir­cum­ven­tion tech­nol­o­gy, and a full range of social media tools, the Glob­al Dia­logue brought togeth­er Ira­ni­ans inside Iran and around the world to share their views about the Iran­ian econ­o­my, equal­i­ty, human rights, safe demo­c­ra­t­ic space, and much more. Day two opened with a spe­cial ses­sion devot­ed to top­ics exclu­sive­ly crowd-sourced from Ira­ni­ans engag­ing in the con­ver­sa­tion online. Pop­u­lar top­ics for the ses­sion focused on the impli­ca­tions of lim­it­ed access to infor­ma­tion and the impacts of eco­nom­ic sanc­tions.

Speak­ing on the reach of the inau­gur­al event, Jan­ice Stein, Direc­tor of the Munk School of Glob­al Affairs, said: “The real accom­plish­ment here is that we’ve been able to con­nect tens of thou­sands of Ira­ni­ans inside Iran with the con­tent of the Glob­al Dia­logue. And even as we are doing this, we have made the safe­ty of our online Glob­al Dia­logue com­mu­ni­ty the pri­or­i­ty.”

The full two days of the event are avail­able to watch on demand (and trans­la­tions are avail­able in Far­si and Eng­lish.) For full access to the Glob­al Dialogue’s con­tent, please vis­it: www.theglobaldialogue.ca.

“This Glob­al Dia­logue seeks to give the peo­ple of Iran a chance to voice their opin­ions and to have their say about the future of their coun­try,” said the Hon­ourable John Baird, Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs, speak­ing at the event. “For those of you inside Iran right now, lis­ten­ing from some­where safe… I want you to know that Cana­da stands with you.”

In the com­ing weeks, the dia­logue will be releas­ing short video clips of dia­logue par­tic­i­pants express­ing their thoughts about top­ics and themes explored. Build­ing on the foun­da­tion of the inau­gur­al event the Munk School looks for­ward to sup­port­ing the dia­logue lead­ing up to the Iran­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tions sched­uled for June of this year.

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Con­nect with our media chan­nels:
Twit­ter: twitter.com/gdfilive
Face­book: facebook.com/theglobaldialogue
Youtube: youtube.com/theglobaldialogue
Google Mod­er­a­tor: goo.gl/mod/Iccm

Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Media Rela­tions
Tel: 416–978-8100
media.relations@utoronto.ca