Talk:Laila Freivalds

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography: Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Sweden Mid‑importance

	Sweden portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sweden, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Sweden-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SwedenWikipedia:WikiProject SwedenTemplate:WikiProject SwedenSweden articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Latvia Low‑importance

	Latvia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Latvia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Latvia related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LatviaWikipedia:WikiProject LatviaTemplate:WikiProject LatviaLatvia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women's History Low‑importance

	History portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Untitled

This article needs to say what the law was - and what she did rather than saying circumventing "controversial law" Secretlondon 15:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty comples actually. Trying to explain the issue to someone not familiar with Swedish law would probably double the article in size. Roughly, there are two types of housing tenure in Swedish law: Hyresrätt (approximately leasehold estate) and Bostadsrätt (owner-occupier, sort of). The law provides for converting an apartment from one type to another. Simplifying the scandal alot, you could say the controversy arose from the fact that Ms. Freivalds had actively made it more difficult for municipalities to convert apartments from hyresrätt to bostadsrätt, while at the same time working to have her own hyresrätt apartment turned into a bostadsrätt. I'll try to work a brief elucidation into the article, though. —Gabbe 12:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The tsunami and Laila

Shouldn't something be mentioned about her actions surrounding the tsunami chatastrophe? Some people claim that that was a more important factor for her resignation than the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy was. - Chebab 15:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According to a Finnish MTV3 news broadcast I'm watching right this moment, closing down the website - and lying about it - was more of a final straw, and that her resignation had been called for ever since her heavily criticized handling of the tsunami. Additionally, there's a whatever-it's-called political event coming up, and she might've harmed her party and/or gotten the boot. --Kizor 20:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, all swedish newspapers (DN, SvD, Aftonbladet) writes that the main reason for her resigning is her handling of the Tsunami, and the affair with the shut down website was quite a welcome excuse to let her go now. She resigned March 21, and March 22 the constitutional committe is expected to come with their comments about her handling of the tsunami catastrophy. This will probably be very critical, thereby causing trouble for the government, and the green party who supports the government would have to call for a vote of no confidence, which would be troublesome for both the green party and the social democrats. Since she has already resigned, the comment from the constitutional committe will be a minor event.Battra 00:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What he said. --Kizor 07:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, media, TV, Radio, papers & opposition place more importance in the Tsunami handling than the web closing. However, listening to people being interviewed, many found the lie more startling. And many analysts interpreted the loss of confidence of the Prime Minister the deciding factor for leaving, especially in an election year. DanielDemaret 14:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The lie

I heard her answer in the radio about a month ago, and I heard the chief editor, the man who found this interesting piece of information and wrote about it in "Riksdag & Department". Try as I might, I can only interpret her words, despite hearing her defence, as a lie. None of the reporters in media that I have seen or heard here in sweden call it merely an "accusation" or "alleged".

There is an interesting point to how the lie was laid bare. "Riksdag & Department" is a kind of internal paper to the government, which reads internal writings, documents, pm, etc, since all writing by the state is in principle open to public access according to "offentlighetsprincipen". The editor in chief pointed out that according to four public documents, Laila had been fully aware of the actions that were about to take place, and at least tacitly approved of them.

Merely "accused" or "Alleged" are words that imply that someone has contested the accusation, but I did not hear anyone, including Laila herself, contest that she knew about the events.

However, whether or not what she did was against the part of the swedish constitution which says that government is not allowed to interfere with the freedom of the press is something that would have had to bedecided by a court. MyPOV is yes.

I am grateful for info on what I may have missed here. DanielDemaret 14:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I put this in just in case it was unclear why closing a web site might be considered serious in Sweden: Her involvement in closing the website is seen by many as a violation against that part of the Swedish constitution dealing with press freedom.DanielDemaret 14:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please shorten, wikify, and otherwise improve :) DanielDemaret 14:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think she is the only minister in Sweden ever to have resigned twice, but I doubt that this is notable enough for the article, is it?DanielDemaret 14:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most media I saw mentioned took note of it, so I don't think it's too trivial to mention in the article. —Gabbe 12:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GO for it, Gabbe :) DanielDemaret 16:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to add things that are notable that are not in the references. However, there are notable details in the references aplenty if anyone cares to enrich the article with this. DanielDemaret 17:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article unclear about lies, noindex?

The article contains a very obscure "This theory requires Freivalds to have lied to the cabinet, something many have found unlikely" with no sources or hints as to exactly what was not lied about. It's irrevocably clear that Freivalds DID lie to the media about not having been informed - hence the quote is at best obfuscating. It serves no purpose, so I'm cutting it out.

Also, is there any reason why the article has a "noindex" tag? I believe this would mean that it doesn't show up in search engines when someone searches for Laila Freivalds. From a brief reading this type of tag seems quite rare, and has been added manually. Could someone with better knowledge of Wikipedia indicate whether that is as expected? I can't find the rules about which articles should be no-index tagged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.143.137.3 (talk) 21:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, it turns out it was just the Talk page.. 158.143.137.3 (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've now rewritten that section for clarity. If the standard on Wikipedia is 'less than truthful' instead of the stronger 'lie' then feel free to change it, although in my view the latter should be used when there's no question about clear facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.143.137.3 (talk) 22:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]