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Ellian, Afshin
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3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Mousavi's arrest is dangerous
Afshin Ellian, an Iranian columnist and professor at the University of Leiden, warns in the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant that the arrest of Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi will meet with fierce opposition and cause bloodshed: "This is why it is crucial that the European Union should warn Iran of the consequences of arresting Mousavi. The European Union does not speak with one voice. Germany, France and the Netherlands, three countries with a clear stance on the regime in Tehran, must jointly declare that the arrest of Mousavi is unacceptable. … Iran's future is of global importance. Therefore it is important that the secretary general of the United Nations send a special representative to Iran to investigate serious human rights violations. The message must be clear: Mousavi must not be arrested. If this is not done the situation in Iran will degenerate into the kind of situation you have in Zimbabwe - with the difference that Iran is significantly more important from a geopolitical perspective."
» full article (external link, Dutch)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Domestic Policy, » Iran
EU must stand by the Iranian people
Afshin Ellian, an exiled Iranian publicist and professor at the University of Leiden, reconstructs the events in Iran in his blog for the right-wing liberal news magazine Elsevier: "At around 4 pm on Saturday afternoon on June 13, a message by the Iranian supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei was read out on national radio and television. Even before the electoral commission had announced the result, Khamenei congratulated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his victory. It is clear that this is not the true outcome of these elections. The EU would do well to protest against this course of action. Challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi rightly spoke of an electoral construct, because the results quite literally had to be reconstructed. Back to Friday, June 12. On this day a state coup was staged against the election result. ... The European Union must act before it is too late. Europe must stand by the Iranian people. Democratic change in Iran will benefit Europe, America and Israel. World peace is hanging in the balance."
» full article (external link, Dutch)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Iran
Credit crisis helps the social democrats
The intervention of Finance Minister Wouter Bos in the credit crisis has led to a marked improvement in the social democratic Labour Party's poll results. The crisis could save the party, writes the liberal-conservative Political weekly Elsevier: "Wouter Bos is winning back the voters' trust. The crisis has provided him with the opportunity to present himself as a leader of the nation, and he has done a wonderful job of it. ... Leadership means facing one's destiny with an open visor. Wouter Bos has done this by making the right decisions at the right moment. ... Otherwise the country would have plunged into a deep political crisis that would have pulled the normal economy ... down with it. Wouter must capitalise on this now, while it is still fresh in the voters' minds. He must prove the leadership qualities of his own party and make a clear choice between the two directions."
» full article (external link, Dutch)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Financial Markets, » Netherlands
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