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."

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