Week 37: Debaters want to put more pressure on the Iranian regime

Last week was the anniversary of the murder mahsa Name Believe in Iran. At the same time, the Swedish EU official Johan Floderus has been imprisoned for over 500 days. Several debaters are now demanding that Sweden and the EU pursue a stricter policy towards Iran.

- The solidarity and sisterhood with Iran's women has now faded away, writes former Riksdag member Amineh Kakabaveh in Expressen.

It has been a year since the moral police in Iran murdered 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in Tehran because her veil did not cover enough of her hair.

Boats Aftonbladet's lead writer Anders Lindberg and Margot Wallström (S), former foreign minister, calls for a stricter Iran policy, both in Sweden and in the EU. The sanctions policy that the government has pursued so far is insufficient, they believe.

- Label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorists and give support to democratic forces in the country, writes Margot Wallström (S) in Svenska Dagbladet.

At the same time, the Swedish EU official Johan Floderus has been imprisoned in Iran for over 500 days. Iran has opened for a prisoner exchange for Hamid Noury, who is imprisoned in Sweden for gross violations of international law. Now the Foreign Ministry's quiet diplomacy is being criticized.

- Of course, it has been done with good intentions, but enough finns doubts about how effective it is, writes Dagens Nyheter's editorial staff.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have had better control, writes editorial writer Hanne Kjöller in Dagens Nyheter, citing that the authority did not advise against travel to Iran at the time of the arrest of Johan Floderus. That only changed after he was imprisoned. At the same time have Ahmadreza Djalali, doctor and researcher at the Karolinska Institute with a permanent residence permit in Sweden, has been in Evin prison since 2016.

- Why weren't the travel recommendations already changed when Djalali was arrested? she writes.

Dagen Nyheter's editorial board still want to give hope. They believe that Iran is undergoing a paradigm shift as the young people in the country "refuse to be subdued".

- An oppressive regime is not only its dictator. It is still more all those who carry out his tasks, and they need to be many, because the people must be kept down all the time. Without these henchmen, the dictator is nothing, they write.