Month: January 2016

Call the Loldiers of Odin if you see anti-immigrant vigilantes patrolling the street!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Thanks to the mixed statements by the police, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government and President Sauli Niinistö concerning asylum seekers, we have today as well vigilante groups like the Soldiers of Odin and neo-Nazi Kansalinen Vastarinta patrolling our streets. Many of the members of these vigilante groups have criminal and far-right backgrounds.

The hesitancy of the police, the government and the president to condemn what is and what isn’t racist and far-right behavior is at the heart of the problem. Their mixed statements have not only fed xenophobia and far-right groups in this country but are tarnishing our international image.

Aren’t we supposed to be a beacon of hope to those fleeing war and poverty? Aren’t we supposed to have one of the best educational systems in the world? Haven’t we built a successful Nordic welfare society based on social equality? Why are we then acting like a bunch of scared people who have never seen foreigners before?

My experience, and I’m certain that of many others like me, with the police has eroded trust in this public service. One only has to read a few lines of former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* councilman Olli Sademies’ Facebook page or hear MP Tom Packalén’s bigoted views about migrants and minorities understand that there is a deep suspicion of anything that isn’t white and Finnish.

Does the police treat me fairly or is my background a factor? Honestly, I don’t know. The police have done little to ensure me of the contrary.

How many black policemen are there in Finland?

Probably one.

Continue reading “Call the Loldiers of Odin if you see anti-immigrant vigilantes patrolling the street!”

Finland’s wishful thinking of populism and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Compared with four or six years ago, the level of xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment has reached fever pitch in Finland. There is so much news and labeling against asylum seekers and our ever-growing culturally diverse community that it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all that’s being written. 

Moreover, perceptions like rising crime and rape cases caused by asylum seekers are being constantly reinforced by one party in the government – the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* – with the blessings of the two other partners,  the Center Party and National Coalition Party (NCP).

Like the Center Party and NCP, the police drags as well its feet and plays down the rise of racism and the threat of far-right groups in Finland with their silence and tacit ideological support of anti-immigration groups.

Looking at Finland today and its eroding international image due to xenophobia the government and institutions like the police service have fueled the growth of racism and far-right groups in Finland with their silence and mixed statements.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-1-30 kello 9.35.26

Read full story here.

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Does Luona treat asylum seekers with dignity or as livestock?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finland saw a record number of asylum seekers come to the country last year. These 32,500 people that traveled far from countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia, have found temporary housing in asylum reception centers. Who watches over, never mind defends, their rights?

Like there are many types of people there are as well many types of asylum reception centers. Some do a good job with their limited resources while others, like Luona, a private company, receive a lot of complaints.

Luona, which is a subsidiary of Barona, houses 3,000 asylum seekers at its reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa. Paavo Voutilainen, Luona’s director of the board, is a former Helsinki social manager who got fired for infringement of duties.

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Luona’s web page claims that it strives to take into account the person’s background, special needs, and dignity.

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Two politicians sit on Luona’s board: former MP Ulpu Iivari of the Social Democratic Party and National Coalition Party MP Sanna-Liisa Lauslahti.

Business is booming these days for Luona thanks to the crisis in the Middle East. Some estimates claim that the state pays the company 40 euros a day per each asylum seeker, or about 1,500 euros a month. The total annual cost amounts to about 35 million euros.

Luona has been the center of controversy. In early January, an Afghani asylum seeker died of a brain hemorrhage. Did Luona do enough to avoid the death of the Afghani? Was their inadequate treatment? We don’t know.

There hasn’t been an independent investigation to clear up the matter.

Another source of complaint by asylum seekers is their poor and humiliating treatment by Luona. One of them told Migrant Tales that they are treated like livestock.

Continue reading “Does Luona treat asylum seekers with dignity or as livestock?”

BOX STORY: Mohammed Saleh Muhsin

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Mohammed Saleh Muhsin, 26, is one of the many thousands of young Iraqi asylum seekers that came to Finland in the fall. Like many of his countrymen, he too speaks of the violence and strife strangling Iraq. 

He spoke to Migrant Tales about his treatment at two of Luona’s reception centers.

“I arrived on September 23 in Tornio from Baghdad after travelling 35 days. I was sent the following day to an asylum reception center in Vantaa located on Sokkakuja 1.

I was treated well by the border guards in Tornio but I cannot say the same about the people who work at two Vantaa reception centers: the rooms where we slept were small and crowded. In the room I slept there were seven persons. Both buildings of the reception center first housed around 78 people but then it rose to about 300 when they closed another reception center near the airport in early December.

The food they serve is horrible and the portions are small. Breakfast consists of a slice of cheese, 2-3 slices of bread, yogurt and a small fruit. There is very little variety: chicken nuggets or meatballs with rice, salad without dressing and soup. I am usually hungry because they don’t serve enough food and because it’s so bad.

It’s a fact that we are mistreated daily by the staff and security guards. I know this not only from personal experience but because I was chosen by the other asylum seekers at the center to be their spokesman. Some of my tasks as represenative of the other asylum seekers also included translating and bringing complaints to the director from others.

The director would usually listen but nothing was done to solve our problems.

The security guards were especially unfriendly and they’d commonly address you like some of the staff with a cussword like vittu. In plain English we are treated with disrespect and in a racist manner. You can easily tell from them that your presence bothers them. None of the guards spoke Arabic. There was only one that spoke a little Turkish or Kurdish. We are treated like livestock that can be moved from one room to another.

All the asylum seekers at the center get paid a monthly assistance of 92 euros but it isn’t paid regularly on the same day. This is the reason why I paid a visit to the vice director in December and why they locked me up in a police cell for fifteen hours. That small amount of money we get means a lot to us. Life is expensive in Finland and with it we must buy many things like bus tickets, food, clothes, soap and other important items.

We had one manager who was good but she left in protest after being there for two and a half months. She didn’t like the way Luona treated us. A new manager was appointed but matters got worse.

When I went to inquire about the late payment of the 92 euros to other asylum seekers there was an interpreter present who spoke Arabic. He got cross and raised his voice at me. He told me in the presence of the manager that I should shut up and that I didn’t have any right to complain because I was a refugee and that the reception center isn’t a hotel. The manager stood in between us because she feared that a fight would erupt between us. The only thing I said was that my payment was late and that my human rights were being breached as a result. The manager assured me that the money would be paid at the end of December.

But then something else happened. Some security guards appeared and one of them handcuffed me from behind and took me out of the office. The police came 10 minutes later. Even if the interpreter told the police that I hadn’t threatened him, I was taken to the police station and locked up in a cell for fifteen hours from 2pm to 5am. The police never told me why I was arrested but they said I could file a complaint if I wanted.

I took the train back to the Vantaa reception center from the police station and thought everything was ok. When I got there I was told to go to the manager’s office and told that I’d be transferred to another center for “security reasons.” I was accompanied by a security guard and told I had 15 minutes to take all my belongings and would be transferred to another Luona reception center on Kutomotie 9 in Helsinki.”

 

 

Was the death of an Afghani asylum seeker at Luona’s reception center due to negligence?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales published on Friday a story where it asked about the circumstances of the death of an asylum seeker, Jayyed Abbas Jaffari (1995-2016), in early January that was staying at Luona’s reception center in Espoo. Was there negligence or not by the private company that runs reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa?

Luona claims that there was no negligence, or inadequate treatment, concerning the death of the young Afghani asylum seeker at its reception center in Espoo’s Nihtisilta.

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Read full story here.

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But who should we believe? Has there been an independent investigation?

There are many unanswered questions not only about Jaffari but how asylum seekers are treated at Luona’s reception centers. While the Finnish Immigration Service (FIS) is responsible for the treatment of asylum seekers at reception centers, do they have adequate resources to do so?

Continue reading “Was the death of an Afghani asylum seeker at Luona’s reception center due to negligence?”

What Finland lacks to become a successful culturally diverse country like Canada

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Anti-immigration populists and ultranationalist use the code term “immigration policy” to mean that they don’t want non-EU nationals especially Muslims from the Middle East and Africa to move to their country. Finland is no exception and some point to Canada as a good example we could copy when it comes to immigration policy.

Those that make such claims have no idea that Finland’s immigration policy is one of the strictest in Europe and they rarely if ever mention that Canada’s recipe for success is based on how Canadians perceive multiculturalism or cultural diversity.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-1-27 kello 9.03.19

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Migrants and minorities of the Nordic region: It’s time to organize and face the rude music

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Europe is in a moral quandary these days. It’s ironic that the more it attempts to instill a sense of security by building ever-higher outside boundaries and treat those who flee war, strife and poverty with disdain, the more it feeds our sense of insecurity. 

Denmark’s plans to confiscate asylum seekers’ valuables and delay for three years family reunification is one shameful example of how some countries in Europe are destroying their values in return for a false sense of security. For Norway, one of the most affluent countries in the world, to return asylum seekers to Russia is another example of the moral demise we are suffering today.

In Finland too the police and the government are unable to agree if neo-Nazi street patrol gangs or clowns that mock at them a threat to our society and values.

What do Denmark, Norway and Finland have in common? They are all Nordic countries and have populist anti-immigration parties in government. In Norway, we have the Progress Party (FrP), in Finland the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, and the Danish People’s Party (DPP).

But blaming these three anti-immigration parties for the rise of xenophobia in the Nordic region would be missing the point. All three parties are in government and have got more power in their respective countries thanks to the support and near-silence of the mainstream parties.

Without the help and support of these mainstream parties the FrP, PS and DPP would never have grown to have so much power.

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The Finnish police arresting clowns who mock neo-Nazi street patrols.

Continue reading “Migrants and minorities of the Nordic region: It’s time to organize and face the rude music”

Migrants’ Right Network: Saving the gains of the Schengen agreement requires European solidarity on protection for refugees

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Don Flynn*

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Much of the news commentary on Europe seems to assume that the Schengen open borders arrangement will vanish in the next few months. That would be a disaster. Saving it will require a reversal of the current refusal of solidarity with countries at the frontline of the refugee flows.

The interior and home affairs ministers of the EU countries are gathering in Amsterdam today and tomorrow in in what is being described as an informal meeting to discuss the latest phase of the region’s migration crisis.

The current Dutch presidency of the EU has set the context for their discussion with the dire warning that the Schengen agreement will fail within two months if a way is not fund to contain the movement of refugees now spilling out across the continent.

Though the UK is not a member of the 26 country agreement it is expected to suffer the negative consequences if it collapses.  Schengen allows for the management of migration across 8,000 kilometres of external land borders as well as a sea frontier that extend for 40,000 kilometres.

It is usually reported as a measure which provides for free movement across the internal borders of the area it encompasses, but equally important is the role it plays in standardising checks on the admission of people moving across external borders.  Critics of the system have claimed that it is failing on this account, and the admission of over one million people seeking asylum in Europe during the course of 2015 has exposed its fundamental flaws.

Continue reading “Migrants’ Right Network: Saving the gains of the Schengen agreement requires European solidarity on protection for refugees”

Does Finland treat asylum seekers with human dignity or as livestock?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Ever wonder why the media, the government never mind private companies running asylum reception centers in Finland are so quiet about the people they are giving shelter, food, and temporary protection? The mere fact that we know so little already raises a lot of questions like the Suomen Kuvalehti story about the death of an asylum seeker in early January in Espoo.

If we are fair, there are reception centers in Finland that treat asylum seekers with dignity irrespective of their limited resources.

Luona, a private company that runs asylum reception centers in Helsinki, Vantaa, and Espoo, claims that there was no negligence concerning the death of the young Afghani asylum seeker, Jayyed Abbas Jaffari (1995-2016), at its reception center in Nihtisilta.

But who should we believe? Has there been an independent investigation?

Some speculate that Luona, fearing a backlash after the death of the Afghani asylum seeker, got Ilta-Sanomat interested in the story. In the story, the company claims that there was no negligence. Others, however, believe the total opposite and go as far as to claim that the company used the Ilta-Sanomat story to cover up its negligence.

Asylum seekers at the center where the Afghani died of a brain hemorrhage state that he tried to get medical attention but the company refused it to him.

“He went for three consecutive days to ask for help from the nurse because he suffered from headaches,” a source told Migrant Tales. “Each time he was told by the nurse to take Burana and drink tea. On the fourth day he collapsed and died and was taken to the hospital.”

Here’s the million-euro question that the death of the Afghani exposes: Are asylum seekers at Luona’s reception centers given adequate medical attention or are they asked to buy Panadol or Burana for their pain?

 

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Read full story here.

Why wouldn’t a reception center like Luona want to send asylum seekers to the hospital for treatment?

Continue reading “Does Finland treat asylum seekers with human dignity or as livestock?”

Swimming hall in Finland bans all asylum seekers until the end of January

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A good example of how some Finns label Others and how the media fuels the “us” and “them” mentality is when a teenage asylum seeker on Thursday was caught watching naked women taking showers at a local swimming hall in the Finnish town of Haukipudas, located 640km north of Helsinki.   

Apart from the incident being reported in Oulu-based daily Kaleva, it has received national attention in tabloids such as Iltalehti.

When the teenager was caught the swimming pool officials forced all of the asylum seekers to leave the premises and banned them from entering the hall for the whole month of January.

While it is a good matter that the non-discrimination ombudsman came out publically stating that barring all asylum seekers could be – and is – against the law, what is surprising is the reaction of the swimming hall officials.

Continue reading “Swimming hall in Finland bans all asylum seekers until the end of January”