To ”losing the ears” is yet a good picture for how some of the data cuts to the as utter surprises. And it blared, enough to over the whole of Sweden of the ears that struck in the car park when the news came about how the Swedish ambassador in China handled the case of the imprisoned publisher and Swedish citizen, Gui Minhai.
It was on Wednesday that Angela Gui published his account of the Swedish ambassador’s conduct on the twitterplattformen Medium. Two weeks ago was called Gui – at their own expense – to a meeting in Stockholm of the ambassador Anna Lindstedt in order to meet a group of chinese ”businessmen” who had an ”opening” in the case. In the settlement was to be helped to put a lid on in Swedish media about how he was treated and put a stop to further debate.
the alarm bells are ringing. She did the courageous and right thing and went out with the whole story. The reactions came instantly from both the left and the right: Both Jonas Sjöstedt, as Ulf Kristersson demanded full transparency. Now, confirming the MINISTRY for foreign affairs that the ambassador acted without the support of Arvfurstens palats (the palace and without that anchor their actions. But this must be publicly investigated. And there is a passage in Angela Guis text that requires us to stop and ask us what happened in detail.
“She [ambassador Lindstedt] said if my father was released she would in the tv talk about the brilliant future of american-chinese relations and to express their dissatisfaction with ’the chinese hotellincidenten’ and how the latter was handled by a Swedish humorprogram.”
the Only source of what was said is Guis own article. But if Sweden’s representative in Beijing, even in the context of a förhandlingsspel, spoken so it is what the diplomats themselves would call ”very serious.” It would confirm China’s way to see in the Swedish media as megaphones for the state. (Which, as of an event coincides with the Swedish högerextremisters view of the same media.)
a Swedish diplomat would have sent signals to a dictatorship state control of the media is beyond belief and needs to be confirmed or dismissed.
the broader context of the entire story. ”Hotellincidenten” and its management in the satirprogrammet ”Swedish News” was blown up into a diplomatic battle. It is in line with the economically strong China’s declared ambition to play a bigger role even political – to demand that the communist party’s views on the media and freedom of expression should be applied even beyond the country’s borders, when the chinese ”interests” are involved.
We live today in an information warfare, which is unfolding around us, not least on social media. It is, of course, but something we constantly need to remind ourselves of. It is usually the first in the other hand if to convince of any particular political line’s excellence. First and foremost, the aim of this psychological warfare to spread concern and confusion about what is true. The fragmentation and uncertainty is the goal. So it is perhaps not surprising that, in connection with this news pops up an entirely new twitter accounts, which in Swedish we call Gui Minhai, and his daughter Angela for ”traitor” – far-right favoritskällsord.
in his book about Sweden during the second world war, ”living next door To evil” (2011) was the relatively free press that a thorn in the side of Nazi germany, which is constantly hers and showering the MINISTRY with threats about what would happen if you did not get quiet on such as Torgny Segerstedt. Similar ”battles” took place also during the Cold war, for example, research on the Nobel prize to Mr Solsjenitzyn. And China has demonstrated the same strategy when it comes to the attacks on the Norwegian nobel Committee for their peace prize to Liu Xiaobo.
a Swedish diplomat would have sent signals to a dictatorship state control of the media is beyond belief and needs to be confirmed or dismissed. Public. It is about the difference between democracy and dictatorship, where independent media and freedom of expression. Which, in turn, is the most likely reason that the Gui Minhai, imprisoned – for the books he had given out. To demand his freedom is thus at the same time a defense of him as a person and the freedom of expression we all depend on to be able to breathe.
