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Dear Member of the Riksdag …
Subject: The starving of children and your response
Do you remember the investigative report broadcast by the programme Uppdrag granskning (a Swedish investigative current affairs programme) on 19 March 2014, which exposed children being starved? According to the report, at certain times the children’s nutritional conditions were so poor that, according to documented testimony, children were given only crispbread and water for breakfast.
When I saw this report in 2014, I became deeply angry and saddened. I managed to control my anger only because I hoped that the Swedish authorities would act to ensure justice. However, when the same tragedy reappeared in the Swedish media in 2023, it became clear that during those nine years, the only real change had been the name of the company that had been starving children. This time, my grief and anger were so intense that my body reacted physically and I vomited. This shows that such injustice can disrupt the biological balance even of a healthy person like me.
I did not have the political or legal power to do anything beyond showing a human and moral response. Yet you were a member of parliament. For that reason, now, nearly three years after this tragedy was last reported in the media, I ask you, as a member of the Riksdag in 2023:
What was your personal response to this tragedy?
What legal, political, or parliamentary means did you use to stop this practice?
What was the specific, objective, and measurable result of your actions to ensure that the starving of children would never again become a news issue in Sweden?
I am aware that in Sweden and among some officials, a culture of irresponsibility has taken shape, one of its most important manifestations being silence in the face of reasonable questions and obvious injustice. In such a culture, silence is not merely the absence of a response; it becomes a tool for continuing injustice. I am determined to break this prevailing silence with the help of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to demand justice in accordance with the rights set out in it. This letter will be published on my website in both Swedish and English. I expect a clear, relevant, and responsible response from you.
If you remain silent, this silence will itself be evidence of the spread of a culture of irresponsibility among political figures, including you. And if you give an irrelevant response, public opinion in Sweden and around the world will judge it.
Yours sincerely,
Bahman Azadfar
Philosopher of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights