November 2015 - Page 3 of 4

France’s and Isis’ spiral of one-way terror and destruction

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The Paris attacks of Friday 13 came as a windfall to hardliners who still believe that the solution in the Middle East is military. We are now seeing the impact of such a mistaken policy in the way of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers coming to Europe this year and the terror attacks of Friday.

Zoe Samudzi offers us poignant analysis of the terror that struck Paris:

“It is important to honor the individuals who were killed in these acts of violence, and central to honoring their deaths is ensuring that we understand why these attacks may have happened in an effort to prevent further human suffering.”

The big question, and a very effective one, is if we want to honor these individuals by understanding why such attacks took place in the first place.

It would be interesting to find out what percentage of Europeans, who are not driven by fear or feelings of blind revenge, believe what President Barack Obama said about the attacks and that they were against “all of humanity and the universal values we all share.”

Are those “universal values” that President Obama states include invading and sledgehammering other countries?

France, which has been one of the most bellicose countries against Syria, responded with a new wave of bombings shortly after the attacks in Paris. You don’t have to be an expert on the Middle East to understand that those bombings won’t solve anything except increase the number of deaths and amount of destruction.

We need more sustainable solutions in the Middle East. Bombing is not one of them. Thank you Michael McEachrane for the heads-up.

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How Timo Soini and the PS hope that the terrorist attacks of Paris will give them a picker-upper in the polls

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Below are two quotes. One is by the present foreign minister, Timo Soini, and the other below is by former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja. Soini is a member of a party that made its mark in politics thanks to its anti-immigration and isolationist rhetoric.

Since Soini and his party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, base their rhetoric on false promises that have been broken after becoming a member of government, their popularity has taken a nosedive in the polls.

What they say and promise have nothing to do with present-day Finland because they are based on lies and if they had free reign they’d legally turn migrants and minorities to third-class citizens.

Everything they propose to demote migrants and minorities in Finland is unconstitutional.

But the show must go on before the PS ship sinks for good as the Titanic did in 1912.

Let’s check out two very different quotes by Soini and Tuomioja about the carnage that took place in Paris Friday.

Soini was quoted above as saying on Uusi Suomi the following about the Paris attacks: “We have to take what happened [in Paris] seriously. The simple message shouldn’t leave any doubt that democracy will be defended. We will neither give these forces the upper hand nor bow to them but we’ll attack and challenge them.”

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How will the far right and anti-immigration parties in Europe try to exploit what happened in Paris today?

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Terrorism is a sign of how dysfunctional our society an countries are at dealing with global conflicts. I’m so saddened by the violence and watch with manifest unease how the far right and anti-immigration populist party will exploit what happened for their own benefit. We still haven’t got confirmation on which group is behind the attacks. My condolences go to the victims and their families.

Read full story here.

Finnish fitness center advertises migrants needn’t apply as members

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Believe it or not in Finland there are fitness centers that advertise to their Finnish customers that foreigners won’t be allowed to use their facilities, especially those that live in an asylum reception center nearby.

Kuntokeskus Valolinna is a fitness center in the town of Heinola, located about 140km north of Helsinki, which advertised on its website and in a newspaper the following:

Kuntosali Valolinna will continue to serve only Finns in the future. Due to outside requests, migrants staying in Heinola will not be allowed to become members of our fitness center because our membership is full.

Say what?! You won’t accept foreigners because your membership is full?

An asylum reception center is being opened near Kuntokeskus Valolinna and this appears to be the reason why the fitness centers wants to assure its customers that these people fleeing war will be kept out of the fitness center.

Non-Discrimiantion Ombudswoman Kirsi Pimiä was quoted as saying in YLE that the announcement by the fitness club is discriminatory.

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Finland’s and fortress Europe’s razorblade chicken feed response to the refugee crisis

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Like cancer, fear, inaction and xenophobia cripple and destroy nations.

Finland and Europe are looking more lost than ever concerning the refugee crisis and this has been shamelessly exposed in the raw at the EU’s Malta summit. If we fail to resolve the refugee crisis as a region we will face another problem that will be many times worse: Forfeiting our noble values and freedoms for short-term ineffective quick fixes.

One of these freedoms at jeopardy is the Schengen Agreement, which allows passport free travel through 26 European states.

Since such short-term responses to the crisis, which aren’t responses at all, are doomed to failure it means that the matters will get worse before they improves. We know well what is at stake in Europe when we pander xenophobia and scapegoat groups.

According to The Guardian, there’s nothing to suggest that the “the confusion, disputes and mudslinging of the past few months” have brought the EU closer to a solution. Probably the most worrying question is that our inaction will exonerate isolationist hardliners like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

“I don’t say he [Orbán] should be entirely supported,”a senior diplomat at the Malta summit was quoted as saying in The Guardian. “But he has a point. There is some truth in what he says. Drastic, restrictive positions would have helped earlier.”

In Finland anti-immigration politicians like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Laura Huhtasaari are stating that we should scrap our international refugee agreements and laws in order to stop refugees from coming to the country.

While some of you may not think much about what Huhtasaari posted, her party is one of the coalition partners in government of a prime minister who offered his home to refugees not too long ago.

Imagine. Here’s an MP of a government party of a country making such a claim that saw over 1.2 million of its people emigrate between 1860 and 1999 and relocated some 420,000 refugees after hostilities ended with the former Soviet Union in September 1944.

Laura Huhtasaari Raato, if we close our border it’s still ok to seek asylum. We must now decide what agreements and laws we can respect because we have reached a limit [with the number of refugees].

Raato Laaksonen Do you mean that lawmakers will decide not to respect laws?

Laura Huhtasaari If laws and agreements bring considerable harm and turn against us we have to review whether we plan respect them.

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Attempted arson attack against Helsinki’s Pitäjämäki asylum reception center

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales understands that Helsinki’s Pitäjämäki reception center was the target of an arson attack on Friday or Saturday. A Molotov cocktail was hurled at the reception center but didn’t light up properly.

A handgun and tommy gun was found in the possession of a man sitting in his car near the Pitäjänmäki reception center.

The man in the car wasn’t apparently planning to attack the reception center and wasn’t connected with the arson attack, according to the source.

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On Friday the police apprehended a man in car with a handgun and tommy gun near the Pitäjänmäki reception center.

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While this attempted arson attack was not reported by the media the question is how many of these types of unreported attacks have their been in Finland?

Two arson attacks have already been reported by the media: in Lammi (6.10) and Ylivieska (31.10).

Reija Härkönen: Luolamiehet eivät ole hyviä diplomaatteja

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Reija Härkönen

Suomi syksyllä 2015: mies ajaa autollaan vastaanottokeskuksen pihaan partioimaan. Autossa hänellä on pistooli ja konekivääri. Poliisi lausuu ja päivälehti kirjoittaa: ”Hän ei aiheuttanut vaaraa kenellekään.”

Vain vähän tätä ennen kotkalainen kunnallispoliitikko on julkaissut nettisivuillaan kuvan konetuliaseista ja kehotuksen tervehtiä maahan saapuvia ihmisiä perinteiseen suomalaiseen tapaan. Kunnallispoliitikon puolueen paikallisosaston hallituksen jäsenen puolustus on: ”Eihän siinä mitään pahaa ollut, mies oli vain euforisessa tilassa, koska vainajien muistelupäivä lähestyi”.

Viikkoja, kuukausia ja vuosia tätä ennen suomalaiset kansaedustajat ovat nettisivuillaan kiihottaneet kansaa vihaan maahan muuttavia afrikkalais- ja arabitaustaisia ihmisiä vastaan.

Tätä kirjoittaessanikin suomalaisen eurokansanedustajan nettisivuston etusivulla lukee: ”Lähi-idästä ja Afrikasta tuleva porukka ei integroidu eikä kotoudu ja syynä islam. Jos tänne tulisi porukkaa esim kauko – idästä niin tilanne olisikin aivan toinen. He kotoutuu ja integroituu yhteiskuntaan ja tekee töitä. Suomi ei tarvitse lisää somaleja eikä irakilaisia etc vetelehtijöitä elämään sossupummeina.”

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Migrant Tales Literary: Would you buy a used car from PS’ Timo Soini?

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Timo Soini is chairman of the nationalist populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. After the most recent opinion polls showed that the political future of the PS is bleak to say the least, what will Soini do after his party returns to the minor political leagues? Will he start to sell used cars?

Would he sell used Halla-ahos or, maybe, Immonens, Eerolas, Elos, Huhtasaaris and Slunga-Poutsalos at rock-bottom prices?

Would you buy such a used car from him and would you trust his promises?

Why not buy an Immonen? The engineering is as simple as the foul and poisonous arguments it exhales from its behind. So simple, in fact, that the biggest threat to this car and its driver is adding a square root to its 1 + 1 = 2 anti-immigration arguments. Buy it to impress racist simpletons. Source: www.zwischengas.com/de/blog/2012

Here’s a spanking-new Eerola! Impress your friends with this vehicle that comes with a year supply of barf bags. Is it a rocket or a car? Who knows? You’ll respond that even if you are a practical nurse that has worked 12 years at a refugee center you still consider yourself an authority on immigration (sic!). Look at the headlights and rocket “fascist-style Mussolini” look. It’s backlights are intended to be more subdued in order to neutralize the racist demeanor that flashes whenever you signal to switch lanes. Source: www.dominnie.blogspot.com

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Institute of Race Relations: A secret punishment

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Jon Burnett

An important new report by Medical Justice, ‘A Secret Punishment’ – the misuse of segregation in immigration detention, highlights the human damage caused by the use of segregation in immigration detention, as well as its political purposes.

Arriving at Heathrow Airport in 2011 on a family reunion visa, 24-year-old ‘MD’ expected to be reunited with her husband – a refugee whom she had not seen in three years. Instead, she was questioned by an immigration officer and, after becoming confused by the questions, subsequently detained in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre. She did not leave until nearly a year-and-a-half later, by which time her mental health had deteriorated to such an extent that she was deemed to be ‘lacking capacity’ under the Mental Health Act. In detention she had sliced open her forehead with the top of a sardine tin, cut her face and stomach with broken pieces of china and attempted to strangle herself with a telephone cable. She self-harmed at least eleven times between August and November 2011, the response to which was to handcuff her, restrain her and remove her from association with other detainees. The High Court later ruled that what she been though amounted to ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which also covers torture.

That segregation – the isolation of an individual for up to 23 hours a day – can amount to torture is now established. It is a ‘secret punishment’ according to Medical Justice. Their report documents the scale of damage caused by segregation by examining their own casework with people who are or have been detained. It also draws on what little external scrutiny exists – most notably the inspection reports from HM Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) and the annual reports of the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB).

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Why are integration programs in Finland doomed to failure?

Posted on November 6, 2015October 24, 2025 by Migrant Tales

Here’s the billion-euro question: Why are integration programs in Finland usually doomed to failure? What can Finland and Europe learn from countries like Canada that have a more successful approach to integration?

One matter is for certain: A big part of the problem resides in between our collective ears. Do we see migrants as a problem or an asset to our society? Certainly factors like human and financial resources play important roles in determining how successful our integration programs are.

You don’t have to search too far to understand the challenges we face in making people feel that Finland is their home and that they’ll be treated with respect and as equal members of society. Even if the answer to the problem sits under our noses the big question is if we want to do anything about it.

Like in any other country, social exclusion in Finland is not only costly to tax payers but for migrants, who are obliged to go through a slow rites of passage, or integration ritual, which doesn’t even assure them of a job after all of their efforts.

Brandy Yanchyk, a Canadian documentary film producer, recently showed her most recent documentary, Finding Edge Road, in Finland.

See Find Edge Road demo here.

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Month: November 2015