Laila Freivalds

Laila Freivalds with Colin Powell

Laila Freivalds (born June 22, 1942 in Riga ) is a Swedish social democratic politician. She was Sweden's Minister of Justice from October 4, 1988 to October 4, 1991, and Minister of Foreign Affairs from October 10, 2003 to March 21, 2006 .

biography

Freivalds, born in the Latvian capital Riga, left Latvia with her family during the Second World War . In 1947 she came to Landskrona / Sweden with her mother and siblings via a German refugee camp . After attending school, she began studying law at Uppsala University , graduating in 1970. According to the prescribed court practice, she decided to pursue a career as a judge, but in 1974 switched to the Central Office for Consumer Affairs (Swedish Konsumentverket ), of which she was Director General between 1983 and 1988. At the same time she was ombudsman for consumer issues.

Her political career began in 1988 when she became Attorney General in the Ingvar Carlsson administration . During the bourgeois government 1991-1994 she worked as a lawyer and then returned to the newly formed social democratic government as Minister of Justice. In 2000, after strong public criticism of buying a home, she resigned. The Social Democrats were staunch opponents of converting rental apartments into condominiums. Laila Freivalds had also sharply condemned this trend. When it came to her own (rented) apartment, however, she took the opportunity to purchase it as a property at a very affordable price. The fact that she responded with a fit of anger to journalists' questions about the deal did not improve her situation.

From 2000 to 2003 she was director of the employers' association for music, dance and theater Svensk Scenkonst . In 2003, after Anna Lindh's murder, she was brought back to the Swedish government as Foreign Minister.

Freivalds was harshly criticized for their behavior after the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean over Christmas 2004, in which over a hundred Swedish tourists were killed in Thailand . She was accused of reacting late, awkwardly and letting more than a day pass before help was sent, despite the fact that the Swedish ambassador to Thailand, Jonas Hafström, informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs early on of the dimensions and risk for a large number of Swedish victims . The tabloid Expressen took the lead in the subsequent storm of criticism and also called for her resignation in view of Freivald's previous housing affair. Prime Minister Göran Persson has assured throughout that Freivalds will continue to have his full confidence.

On March 21, 2006, Freivalds drew conclusions from the criticism of her behavior in the affair surrounding the Mohammed cartoons and resigned from her position as foreign minister: she was accused of not telling the media truthfully about the closure of the website of the right-wing conservative Sverigedemokraterna informed, on which was called for the submission of further Mohammed cartoons.