Afshin Ellian

Afshin Ellian ( born February 27, 1966 in Tehran ) is a Dutch legal scholar, since 2005 Professor at the University of Leiden. He is a socialist and atheist and is considered an influential critic of Islam.

In 1989, he came as a political refugee from Iran to the Netherlands.

Ellian continued in 2007 for the Dutch Islam critic Ehsan Jami one who repeatedly been the victims of Islamist violence was after the founding of the Dutch offshoot of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims. It was only at the insistence Ellians was granted Ehsan Jami special personal protection. Ellian is committed to the elimination of Salafism.

On the occasion of mass demonstrations following the Iranian presidential elections in 2009 appealed Ellian in an open letter to Ayatollah Khamenei to end peacefully, following the example of South Africa and his truth commissions the tyranny in Iran.