Belgium – EU Observer, Apr. 29, 2026
During World War II, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved lives by not following the standard rules of diplomacy.
Through ingenuity and sheer courage, he saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the fate suffered by so many during the Holocaust.
When he was taken into the Soviet Gulag after the war and accused of being an American spy, Sweden pursued quiet diplomacy to secure his release. It did not work.
Sweden, regrettably, did not actively engage in Wallenberg’s case even after international commissions determined that the evidence was incontrovertible that Wallenberg had not died in 1947, as the Soviets claimed, and compelling that he was alive thereafter.
Today, that unresolved case remains emblematic of the dangers of passivity in the face of injustice – dangers that continue.
When Swedish national Koroush Kivani was arrested in Iran in June 2025 on allegations of spying for Israel, Sweden called for a fair trial and pursued the case through quiet diplomacy.
Again, these efforts did not succeed, and Kivani was executed last month (18 March).
Sweden has an opportunity to demonstrate that it has learned from past failures and the limits of quiet diplomacy in the case of Swedish-Iranian citizen, Ahmadreza Djalali, who this month marks 10 years in Iran’s Evin prison.
