This weekend, Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi finally got to return to Sweden after their prison time in Iran. In exchange, the Iranian Hamid Noury, who was serving a life sentence in Sweden after being convicted of, among other things, gross violations of international law, was pardoned and released.
The lawyer and writer Dana Pourkomeylian, who was previously active within the Center Party, believes that it was too high a price to pay. With the release, the government has undermined the Swedish justice system, she believes.
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– By meeting the regime in this way, I mean above all that you have exposed all other Swedes to further risk in the future. The next time the terrorist regime wants something from Stockholm, they will just kidnap one more Swedish person, says Pourkomeylian in a debate in Current.
The best of “bad options”
Linda Jerneck, lead writer for the non-aligned liberal Expressen, is of a different opinion and believes that a prisoner exchange was the best of two “bad options”.
– It is about two Swedish citizens who were arrested solely because they have Swedish citizenship. They have not committed any crimes beyond that, she says.
Jerneck also emphasizes that in Floderu’s case there was no travel advisory for Iran when he traveled there in 2022. She believes that it was a mistake by the government not to announce one already in 2019, when Hamid Noury was arrested.
– Iran has a long history of this thing called hostage diplomacy. There I think that the Swedish government had an extra big responsibility to get him released.
Places the responsibility on the individual
However, Dana Pourkomeylian does not buy Jernek’s argument given Iran’s history of oppression and dictatorship.
– Iran is not somewhere you go and take a holiday. This is well known in the cases of both of these individuals. Then I mean that when you weigh the different values, then it is Sweden’s interests that should be put first.