Before the beginning of the round-table talks and the panels of the first day, Nahid Bahmani, as one of the members of the Holding Committee of Prague Conference, pointed out in a report what has come about from Stockholm to Prague. Bahmani expressed the hope that the conference will be again fruitful. “A year ago, in Olof Palme, we gathered with the presence of the less participants than today and we talked about the fundamental issues of democracy in Iran”, she said “issues like separation of religion from government, individual and social rights and freedoms, approval of conventions with principles of the international human rights and at the end there was a resolution signed by the absolute majority of the participants.” We came to this idea that why we don’t continue the conference as development of democratic dialogues between different theories and various schools of thought. Why don’t we provide the conditions in exile to create better groundwork for making close the ideas? All were committed to this idea. In the Brussels Conference we put more emphasis on the basics and we said that we should find ways and solutions to enhance them. A resolution was approved and the media reflection was great and every one, as participant or non-participant, was informed of that. This is the third conference with more intellectual and academic figures which is held in Prague and I hope this conference can take higher steps towards finding approaches and expansion of thoughts and democratic dialogues. But I would like to explain to the people who were not present that the obligatory presence at all costs was not our wish. The presence of different policies and principles and also the diversity of thoughts has been taken into account. In terms of gender, we tried to have the same number of women activists as men. And the young spectrum and those who have entered the Iranian political scene should also participate in this conference. We tried that different nationalities and different cultures participate and from the beginning we believe on what we say as Iran belongs to everyone. I don’t claim that our success was hundred percent, but there was an attempt to reach this objective and the diversity of ideas be respected. I believe that this conference has made progress in this regard.
I hope that clear suggestions and transparent opinions would help us to develop the basic issues and the problems that the Iranian society faces with in all political, cultural and social domains. I hope that we could see appropriate ideas and eventually implement them. Before the question “Where do these conferences lead to?” we should be able to gather a large number of people around the unity of construction for future of Iran and the process to establish democracy. And in accordance with joint transparent and honest agreements, we prepare ourselves for construction of Iran. At the moment we are in the political autumn and we have to play an important role in establishing future spring in Iran, and do what is not possible inside the country because of the extreme oppression and tyranny.
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