Commemoration of International Migrants Day

The Ambassadors of Peace and Friendship Group in partnership with UNIC Tehran commemorated Interntional Migrants Day ta UN conference room, AVA Diplomatic reports.

In this session administered by Tayebeh Mohammad the Director of the Ambassadors of Peace and Friendship Group, several scholars, artists and intellectuals were present and issues regarding migrant-receiving communities and migrant societies were discussed.

UNIC Director Dr. Maria Dotsenko while welcoming the guests, read the message of the UN Secretary-General on Interntional Migrants Day for the audience. Then Dr. Tayebeh Mohammad’s briefed the participants on the role of migrants in transfer of cultures and intercultural relations.

Mr. Yarta Yaran as the first speaker expressed the theory of migration and its reasons in Iran. Dr. Beatriz Salas spoke of her own experiences in Iran and explained about her translation of the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) in Spanish. Maestro Loris Tjeknavorian was the next speaker who spoke of music and the effects of migration on transfer of the meaning of music among cultures. Afterwards, Mr. Amir Samavati discussed the effects of migrants on the art of cinema and Dr. Mohammad Bigdeli elaborated on the topic of migrants and sports.

Professor Hussein Baher gave a speech on the topic of Rumi, the migrant poet. Dr. Ralf Lengen discussed the issue of peace and migration focusing on learning the languages and he spoke in Persian. He expressed that if we, the people of the world, gain knowledge of each other we will never have wars and concluded his speech that if we get to know other languages and cultures our friendships will certainly become tighter.

At the end of the session Dr. Ali Babaei Zad discussed the issue of gene pool and diversity with regards to migration and spoke of changing the mindsets and optimizing human societies.

Also during the session Mr. Abbas Jamalpour explained about the role of art in peace and transfer of art by migrants. Then the peace painting by the Iranian artist Farnaz Haghighi titled ‘Peace in Galactic Movement’ was donated to the UN Information Center in Tehran so as to convey the message of peace to migrants and their move in the universal order on International Migrants Day.