SWEDEN
5 April, 2025
Debate article in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, with more than 880,000 readers of the online edition and 470,000 readers in the print edition, with the headline: DN Debatt. ”Fallet Joakim Medin visar på Sveriges svaghet” – “DN Debate: “The case of Joakim Medin highlights Sweden’s weakness”. The article mentions Dawit Isaak and others as part of a broader call for action.
Signatories of the article:
Kerstin Almegård – Chairperson of Svenska Pen (Swedish PEN)
Caroline Edelstam – Chairperson of the Harald Edelstam Foundation
Mona Haghgou Strindberg – Lawyer specialized in arbitrary detentions
Erik Larsson – Chairperson of Reportrar utan gränser (Reporters Without Borders) Sweden
Summary of the article:
In this debate article, the authors discuss the urgent need for Sweden to take more decisive action to protect its citizens imprisoned in authoritarian countries. Joakim Medin, a journalist for ETC, was recently arrested in Turkey, adding to the list of three other Swedish citizens unjustly imprisoned abroad: Dawit Isaak in Eritrea (23 years), Ahmadreza Djalali in Iran (9 years), and Gui Minhai in China (9 years).
The article highlights that while these unlawful detentions are symptomatic of the broader problems within authoritarian regimes, Sweden has a legal obligation, under both national and international law, to protect its citizens from torture and inhumane treatment, and to ensure they have a fair trial and proper legal representation. Despite the government’s reliance on “silent diplomacy,” the authors argue that Sweden’s efforts so far have yielded no visible results.
They call for Sweden to adopt a more proactive approach, including:
- Updating legislation to clarify actions for handling illegal detentions.
- Imposing political and economic sanctions on the detaining states.
- Creating a dedicated organization within the Swedish Foreign Ministry (UD) to handle these cases efficiently, similar to structures already in place in the USA, France, and Canada.
- Ensuring consistent and meaningful updates for the families of detainees and engaging in more active international cooperation.
The article stresses that defending human rights requires time, effort, and financial resources, and it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that citizens facing unlawful imprisonment receive the necessary support.
