September 2015 - Page 2 of 5

Facebook: Finland’s abstension and pitiful explanation why

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Finland’s ambassador to Switzerland, Jari Luoto, isn’t too happy about Finland’s abstention on Tuesday when interior ministers met and decided to distribute 120,000 refugees.

The reason why Finland was the only country to abstain, apart from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland that voted against, is because we have a populist anti-immigration party in government.

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* foreign minister, Timo Soini, has done a lot of harm to Finland’s image and its relations with Sweden.

On Monday he blamed Sweden for helping asylum seekers to come to Finland. He said that its western neighbor will help terrorists and traffickers if Sweden continues to have such open borders.

No wonder people like Luoto are concerned.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or the Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Reija Härkönen: Dublinin sopimusta ei solmittu persuja varten

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Reija Härkönen

Perussuomalaisten tapa esittää vääriä väitteitä Dublinin sopimuksesta on käsittämätöntä. Kuinka suomalaisen hallituspuolueen puheenjohtaja ja maamme ulkoministeri voi tuolla mittakaavalla osoittaa tietämättömyytensä tai yksinkertaisesti valehdella ja kiihottaa kansaa pakolaisia vastaan?

Kun asia nyt on vielä edennyt niin, että Soini törkeästi syyttää hyväntahtoista, rauhanomaista naapurimaatamme tuon sopimuksen rikkomisesta ja uhkailee välien kiristymisellä, alkaa olla kyse tasavallallemme vahingollisesta toiminnasta.

Dublinin sopimus tuli voimaan vuonna 1997. Tarkoituksena oli mahdollisimman nopeassa järjestyksessä määritellä se, mikä EU:n jäsenvaltio on velvollinen käsittelemään pakolaisen turvapaikka-anomuksen. Yleensä tuoksi valtioksi määriteltiin se maa, jonka kautta pakolainen oli tullut EU:n alueelle.

Continue reading “Reija Härkönen: Dublinin sopimusta ei solmittu persuja varten”

UPDATE (September 21): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

September 21

Iraqis on Facebook warn compatriots against coming to Finland – (YLE in English)

Why is this story an example of opinionated journalism? It’s clear that for some Finns, and especially for political parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, that the humanitarian crisis has brought out the worst in them. There is no respect for human rights and people are seen as numbers with price tags. Anti-immigration sentiment is strong in this country as well. Immigration is seen by too many as a problem, not as an opportunity. That’s why you see the present debate on asylum seekers shifting in the media from people fleeing war and poverty to “human trafficking.” The YLE story shows three ungrateful Iraqis that came here and now want to return back to their country. What do such thankless persons in the story signal to the reader? Is it that the three asylum seekers, as well as many others, that are coming to Finland from Iraq aren’t real refugees? Why would a person who’s seen war, members of his family killed and sold everything to move here, would want to return to Iraq? Why doesn’t the reporter write about the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who are fleeing war but cannot return to their former homes? The wish of the Iraqis to return to their country must be the same that the reporter has for them: Go back to where you came from!

Read full story here.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Thank you Claudio Saavedra for the heads-up!

Finnish media’s latest red herring when talking about asylum seekers

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Migrant Tales

A red herring is something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand; a misleading clue.

It’s pretty incredible to note how the debate in the Finnish media has shifted from asylum seekers, or people fleeing war and poverty that are coming to Europe, to human trafficking. When the media parrots what politicians and officials say about human trafficking what are they really saying?

Are they taking our focus off the problem, or people fleeing war and poverty? Is it because they are victims of human trafficking and therefore their request for asylum is suspect?

Is it an effective way to fuel our apathy and indifference towards such people?

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman and foreign minister, Timo Soini, who is ideologically in the same league as Viktor Orbán of Hungary when it comes to refugee policy, gave a stern warning to Sweden: If they don’t stop asylum seekers from coming to Finland it will undermine relations between both countries, according to tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.

Soini went as far as to suggest that by allowing asylum seekers to travel through Sweden to Finland you were financing human traffickers and terrorists.

Continue reading “Finnish media’s latest red herring when talking about asylum seekers”

Perussuomalaiset party wants Finland to turn back asylum seekers from Sweden

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The populist anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party’s parliamentary group wants to turn back asylum seekers that are entering the country from Sweden to the northern city of Tornio, reports YLE in English. The PS are the only party in Finland making such a demand.

“It is time to recognise the facts and get to work,” Sampo Terho, who chairs the PS parliamentary group, in a statement. “We must turn back those asylum-seekers trying to enter Finland through Sweden and advise them to seek asylum in the Schengen Area country they first came to.”

Terho said that that joint immigration policy in the EU has been left floating “because the Dublin Regulation is no longer upheld in Europe”

Legal experts were quoted on YLE saying that an asylum seeker can be sent back to the first EU country if the person was registered there. Moreover, human rights and the fair treatment of refugees by EU countries like Finland should be the priority, not tight interpretations of the Dublin Regulation, according to Helsinki University European legal expert Juha Raitio.

Read full story here.

Continue reading “Perussuomalaiset party wants Finland to turn back asylum seekers from Sweden”

A Finnish father teaches his child to hit and hate refugees

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

If you want a lesson on how racism and hatred is passed on to the next generation, watch the video clip (in Finnish) below of supposedly a father or guardian telling his daughter to hit a monkey teddy bear, which is supposed to be a refugee.

The child doesn’t appear to be too happy at the end of the video for hitting the monkey teddy bear.

“What is this,” the father says. “Who is this?”

“Refugee,” the child responds.

“What shall we do to it? Look, like this,” the father continues hitting the monkey teddy bear’s head.

“Iitu, Iitu what do we do to refugees?”he asks. “With both hands, Iitu. Show me. Let’s give the refugee a punch. Iitu. Give it a hard punch like this one,” the father continues hitting the monkey teddy bear’s head hard.

“What is this?” the father asks the child again.

“Refugee,” the child responds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKyE0Z5aNQM&feature=youtu.be

Thank you Christian Thibault for the heads-up!

UPDATE (September 20): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

September 20

Nainen löi mustaa tyttöä pussissa Turussa – (Turun Sanomat)

What’s wrong with this story? Here’s a news story about a black girl sitting with her two white Finnish friends in a bus. A white middle-aged Finnish woman approaches her and slaps her twice on the face. She then tells the black girl’s friends that they shouldn’t hang around with such a girl. Nobody on the bus said a word or raised a finger after the woman slapped the girl. Instead we read about excuses given by the reporter like the black girl was speaking too loud and that she is an adopted child. Why are these tidbits of information important? What happened to the little girl is unacceptable as was the shameful behavior of the passengers and driver, who decided to look the other way. Poor and shoddy journalism at its worse.

Tuleeko lehdistö palvelemaan rasismia kun turvapaikkahakijoiden määrää kasvaa Suomessa?

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Kun Somalit tulivat Suomeen noin 25 vuotta sitten, erityisesti lehdistö ruokki vastakkain asettelun ilmiötä. Etupäässä olivat mm. Ilta-Sanomat ja Karin pilapiirrokset Helsingin Sanomissa.

Suomalainen lehdistö ei ole viisastunut paljon. Kun rasismi nousi Suomessa viime vuosikymmenellä suomalainen lehdistö oli levittämässä nykyisen kaltaista vihasanomaa.

Lähde: Kari Suomalaisin pilakuvia.

Lehdistö teki siinä palveluksen Perussuomalaisille mutta ei demokratialle ja varsinkin maassamme kasvavalle moninaiselle yhteiskunnalle.

Continue reading “Tuleeko lehdistö palvelemaan rasismia kun turvapaikkahakijoiden määrää kasvaa Suomessa?”

Far right Olli Immonen is a thankless MP to the PS and Timo Soini

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Some politicians, like Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Olli Immonen, live in a bubble inflated by their rhetoric and delusions. We got a taste of his hateful ideology in July, when he declared war on “the nightmare of multiculturalism” and how he vowed “his fighters” will “fight until the end for our homeland.”

What on earth does he mean by “our” homeland?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This country was never yours, Olli Immonen. It never was, isn’t, and will never be yours to claim.

The far right politician is at it again pumping those foul gases in his bubble on a new Facebook post about a seminar organized today by Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu.

Immonen now writes:

“The situation in Finland is at this moment catastrophic and we must think of ways in which (white) Finns can become more involved with our people, our culture and protect this country from the ever-growing threats it faces. It’s clear that just voting in parliamentary elections every four years isn’t enough to change course of how things are developing.”

Sure, Immonen, you go right ahead and have your “seminar” but don’t forget to thank the party and its head, Timo Soini, who made it possible for the likes of you and others like MEP Jussi Halla-aho and former MP James Hirvisaari to have a political platform for your racism and far right ideology.

Continue reading “Far right Olli Immonen is a thankless MP to the PS and Timo Soini”

Saido Mohamed: How much good will is there in Finland for asylum seekers?

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Migrant Tales

In the early 1990s Finland was in the midst of one of its worst recessions in a century, when unemployment rocketed to about 20%. The number of migrants back then was relatively small totaling in 1992 a mere 37,642 and accounting for only 0.7% of the total population.

Today Finland has been in a recession for four consecutive years and the migrant population was 301,524 at the end of 2013, accounting for 3.8% of the total population. Unemployment in July was 8.4%.

During 1990 and 1995 the Somali community in Finland rose from 44 to 4,044. While these numbers may appear small, they were significant taking into account the country’s foreign population.

The mix of recession and asylum seekers brought out the worst in some Finns. All one had to do at the time was to read the tabloid billboards or look at Kari’s cartoons in Helsingin Sanomat, which would never be published today because of their racist nature.

The first time I got death threats by phone as a journalist was when I published in the early 1990s a two-page spread for Apu magazine about a refugee center in Mikkeli that had Somalis.

One of those Somalis that came to Finland in the early 1990s is Saido Mohamed, who chairs the Finnish Somalia Network.

Saido Mohammed.

Continue reading “Saido Mohamed: How much good will is there in Finland for asylum seekers?”