Month: April 2018
Finnish Immigration Service: “Your wife’s unborn child can grow up without you; is the child going to be raised a Muslim?” PART II
Migrant Tales will publish the decision to reject Abdul a residence permit on family grounds. His wife, a Finn, is expecting their child that will be born in September.
Below is the decision by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to reject Abul’s residence permit on family grounds.
Unofficial translation: “The applicant and family reunification sponsor started to live as a family during a period when there were uncertainties about the applicant’s residence permit in Finland. They must have understood that living as a family in Finland could not be a possibility.
The wellbeing of the applicant’s and family reunification sponsor’s unborn child does not require granting a residence permit to the applicant. The applicant has with his own actions tried to bypass rules about entering [Finland]. The child can live in the future in Finland with the family reunification sponsor.”
Forming a family is a human right as stipulated in Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Finnish Immigration Service: “Your wife’s unborn child can grow up without you; is the child going to be raised a Muslim?”
Apparently, there is no guarantee in Finland that marriage or having a child with a Finnish citizen will guarantee asylum and a residence permit. It is the case of Abdul,* who spoke on condition of anonymity, an Iraqi asylum seeker who came to Finland in 2015. Contrary to many like him, Abdul is married to a Finnish woman who is expecting their child in September.
Abdul’s story is a complex one like that of so many asylum seekers. The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) has made life difficult for him for not mentioning some trips he made abroad. For this reason, they don’t believe his reason for seeking asylum.
A drawing by an asylum seeker that reads: “The journey [to Finland] was hard, please don’t deport us.”
“I got two negatives: one for asylum and another one for residence due to my pregnant [Finnish] wife,” he said. “I have been living with my wife [in Northern Ostrobothnia] since August 2016.”
Abdul applied for residence on family grounds in June 2017, a month after he got married, but was turned down.
“It took seven months to get an interview with Migri and then two-and-a-half months for their decision, which was negative,” he continued. “After the interview, they sent me 12 questions that I answered.”
Abdul and his wife were shocked when they heard the Migri official tell them at the interview that the child could grow perfectly well without a father.
“The Migri official said the child [that will be born] does not need his father and this is in my opinion a human rights violation,” he said. “My wife started to cry when she read the decision.”[1]
Another question that was asked to them in the interview was if the child was going to be raised a Muslim, according to Abdul.
The Iraqi asylum seeker’s wife and her family have vowed to move wherever Abdul is deported to from Finland.
“I refuse to leave Finland and live without my wife and child,” he concluded. “Living like this and in constant uncertainty is not only hard on me but on all those around me.”
* The name was changed to protect his identity since he is still an asylum seeker.
[1] Due to a misunderstanding in English, Abdul meant to say that the decision by Migri that the unborn child does not need to grow up with a father is, in his opinion, a human rights violation. The Migri official did not say that it was not a human rights violation. The wife cried when she read the rejection from Migri.
Pressiklubi gives simplistic, apologetic view on how the Finnish media is “more balanced” today when writing about non-white Finns
It is surprising to hear how some politicians and journalists continue to have simplistic and apologetic views of racism and bigotry in this country. If YLE’s Päivi Happonen and Atte Kaleva’s words are to be believed on Pressiklubi, the Finnish media has finally woken up and writes more balanced stories about migrants and minorities that live in Finland.
After Ruben Siller’s exit, Sanna Ukkola became Pressiklubi’s host. Don’t be surprised why her guests are who they are and say what they say on her program. Ukkola is married to Matias Turkkila, who has launched an all-out war against migrants in Finland through the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and hate platforms like Hommaforum.
When Kaleva claims, like on the show, that there are two extremes in the debate on our ever-growing culturally diverse society, what he is suggesting is that racism and bigotry aren’t issues in our society but only a consequence of the “two extremes” debate.
The way I see it, the rise of a party like the PS and their supporters in other parties have bulldozed and reaffirmed white power and privilege.
Here is what is really weird about Finland. White Finns (without usually the participation of migrants and minorities) can agree that we have to hear the other person’s opinions even if if is racist. What would they say if we spoke in the same disrespectful manner about women? That discussion would be off limits but the one relegating migrants and minorities to third-class members of society isn’t.
Päivi Happonen claims on Pressiklubi that the Finnish media reporting about migrants is more balanced. Even so, she forgets to mention that the reporting and narrative of the media is anchored in a very biased view of cultural diversity because the media is white and Christian.
As a minority who has lived in Finland for over thirty-five years, as a journalist that wrote for all the main publications of Finland, who has worked as a foreign correspondent in Finland, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Colombia, I consider Happonen’s and Kaleva’s affirmation oversimplistic and apologetic.
Racism and bigotry are deeply embedded in Finnish culture. We should ask minorities like the Roma, Saami and stereotypic portrayals of migrants for decades by the media if it were ever that “friendly.” On the contrary, the Finnish media has been the tool of power, and it has been used relentlessly against Others.
From Black February 2012 to the brutal attack of a Pakistani migrant in 2018 – are these hate crimes?
Is it a coincidence that Black February, which took place in 2012 and involved the violent deaths of three members of the Muslim community of Finland, happened on the same month when a Pakistani was brutally attacked by three white Finns in Vantaa? While the timing may have happened by chance, there are similarities between what happened in February 2012 and on February 23.
The events that took place six years ago in February involved a Somali in Oulu leaping to his death on January 31 from the fourth floor after three white Finns broke into his home; the violent death of an eighteen-year-old Somali Finn who was killed in the Espoo neighborhood of Leppavaara by his white Finnish schoolmate; and a white Finn called Janne entering a pizzeria in Oulu and killing in cold blood a Moroccan and wounding the owner, who is Algerian, before taking his own life.
Before the three deaths and suicide, a foreigner who delivered newspapers in Oulu was threatened by three men on December 23, 2011, and decided to jump off the stairway balcony on the third floor. An ambulance arrived, but he did not die from the leap.
In all cases, the police appear reluctant to pin racism as a motive.
February 2012 and 2018
Is it a coincidence that the police have arrived at the same conclusion concerning the brutal attack of the Pakistani migrant in February?
The attack happened on Friday and the following day, the police got in touch with the wife of the victim. The first question she asked the police was if what happened was a hate crime. The police denied it was a hate crime because the suspects “were intoxicated,” according to the wife.
While we don’t know all the facts of the crime, “intoxication” does not absolve a person from committing a hate crime.
Moreover, the wife claimed later that the police told her that it could not be a hate crime because it “wasn’t planned.” A hate crime can be planned.
The reaction of the police concerning the wife’s concerns reveals that the police appear reluctant to place “hate” as a factor in the attack of the Pakistani migrant.
A lot of questions arise. One of these is how did the police arrive so rapidly at the conclusion that it wasn’t a racist crime? How come it took the police until Tuesday to release a statement that did not mention the words hate crime. The police officer that was investigating the crime, Detective Chief Inspector Mikko Minkkinen, was, however, quoted as saying in the media that it was not a hate crime.
He has also denied it to Migrant Tales.
For some reason, the police have killed the link about the detention of the people suspected in the Somali’s death after he leaped from the fourth floor.
Here is another broken link that was a story about the police beginning an investigation of Tommi Rautio, the PS councilperson, who suggested that the killer of the Moroccan at the Oulu pizzeria should be given a medal. At first, the police did not want to investigate the incident as a racist crime but then changed their minds a few days later. Read the original story here.
Hate crime or not
Could the most recent case of the Pakistani migrant make us suspicious that the police may want rule out a racist motive in a crime for political reasons and avoid public anger and panic in the Muslim and migrant community?
Adam, the undocumented migrant in Finland from Ingushetia, Russia
Adam,* an undocumented and homeless migrant from Ingushetia, a troubled region of Russia located near Chechnya, is a Muslim who applied for asylum in Finland in 2012. He got in touch with Migrant Tales a week ago and asked if we could help him.
“I came to Finland when I was 24 and today I’m 29 years old,” he said, adding that it upsets him that he has lost so much time in Finland.
According to Adam, he left Ingushetia because of the Russian policies, which have tried to quell by force its aspirations to separate from Russia.
Finland’s tightened immigration policy is one culprit that has caused the number of undocumented migrants to soar from a few hundred to thousands.
Adam admits that he suffers from hunger because he eats once a day and depends on help from a variety of places like the Church. “I almost always feel hungry and feel exhausted,” he said.
Adam says he’s been suffering from sleeping disorders for 5-6 years after he left Ingushetia.
One of the darkest periods of his stay in Finland was when he ended up at the Joutseno immigration removal center for a year. Since 2017, after his release, he became undocumented and homeless.
It was Adam’s aunt who advised him to seek asylum either in Finland or Sweden. He chose Finland.
Adam said that he paid 90,000 roubles, which was at the time about 1,500 euros, to help him cross the border to Finland.
In February 2016, he was forced to move out of the asylum reception center after two rejections from the Finnish Immigration Service and the district court.
“The people at the reception center said I was free to do what I wanted,” he said. “But I had no place to go and did not have any money. I went to the Helsinki Railway Station and told the security guard that I was going to steal something. He called the police, and I was able to sleep in a warm cell for one night.”
During that same year, Adam was detained by the police again and sent first to the Metsälä immigration removal center in Helsinki and then to Joutseno, where he was locked up for a year awaiting deportation.
A view of the Joutseno immigration removal center where children are locked up with their parents. According to Adam, this is the same courtyard where the inmates were allowed to walk outside for an hour.
“Joutseno was a tough place to live,” he explained. “Every day when I woke up, I asked where I was, and everything was the same. I used the time to learn Finnish, read books, surfed the Internet, and watched TV. I did sport, but there is no place where you could do sports. They only let you walk in a court for an hour every day.”
Adam said that the year at the Joutseno immigration removal center changed him for the worse. “Every time I think about the year I spent there,” he continued, “why they robbed me of a year, I get upset.”
He doesn’t understand why he was not deported to Russia.
“I think it is because I don’t have any documents or proof of identity,” he explained. “I was detained for a year [at Joutseno] because that is the maximum time they can keep you by law imprisoned if you are an undocumented migrant.”
His mother does not know that he is an undocumented migrant and homeless.
“I cannot tell her the truth about my situation because she is ill and her situation could worsen if she knew,” he said. “She would get upset.”
Adam admits that he does not know who to turn to if he needs medical attention. He has now found temporary shelter.
The police
“I’m afraid of the police because they can send me back to prison [immigration detention center] and deport me,” he said. “Why should I be put again in prison? The police never hit me, but they hit my brain with stress and made me feel very, very tired.”
Adam, who said that his ordeal had made him feel tired, states that he does not drink alcohol or use drugs.
“I’m [mentally] tired since I have constant stress about my situation,” he said. “I have no idea what will happen to me, but one matter is for certain: I cannot return to Ingushetia.”
If Adam could write a letter to Finland, he said he would say: “Don’t be a racist with Rusian citizens.”
“I think some people hate me because I’m from Russia,” he added.”Migri gave me negatives because they said to me that we need proof but how can I show them any proof if I ran away from my country.”
Adam has lost hope about his future.
“I am not confident of getting a residence permit, but I lost hope, everything, and I’m still here because I cannot go back,” he added.
Adam admits that he “wastes his time” in Finland because he cannot go back to Ingushetia is not an option.
He said that the only matter that helped him survive in Finland was because he was born a strong person.
“I still survive because I have no choice, and I cannot go back,” he said. “The only thing I now need most is my place.”
He said that he had suffered from sleeping disorders for 5-6 years when he left Ingushetia.
“I sleep as if I were in a war,” he continued. “I think a lot of my problems and cannot sleep like normal people. I think of my mother, about everything in my life. I’m sometimes nervous, and I get angry. I get very angry sometimes.”
Occasionally, Adam feels that he is only a step away from becoming crazy.
“[Becoming crazy] is like when somebody talks to you and your mind is roaming somewhere else,” he concluded. “Becoming crazy, I think, is when you lose your mind and explode.”
* Adam is a pseudonym to protect his identity.
UPDATE: Prosecutor General Toiviainen will not file ethnic agitation charges against PS MP Juho Eerola
Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen announced Friday that she will not file ethnic agitation charges against Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Juho Eerola, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Toivianen said in a statement that no charges will be brought against Eerola due to “a lack of evidence,” according to YLE.
Eerola is also the PS’ third vice president.
UPDATED (April 7 at 13:05): Kyösti Roth, a well-known voice of the Roma community, was surprised by the Prosecutor General Toiviainen’s decision.
“By not charging [PS MP Eerola of ethnic agitation] means in practice that anyone who wants can condemn publicly as drug dealers and criminals the Roma and Roma beggars. Is this what social equality means in Finland?”
Rikhard Blomerus, a member of the Roma minority and a substitute councilperson of Savonlinna for the Blue Reform party, filed charges last year against Eerola for ethnic agitation after he made some denigrating comments on Facebook about Roma beggars from Romania and Bulgaria.
Apart from stating that he would spit at them and take out his bank card as a form of payment, he wrote as well that the Roma are criminals. “[They are] drug dealers and criminals,” he wrote on Facebook. “If you don’t give them money they treat you aggressively; they [then] disappear.”
Sira Moksi published a cartoon (below) of what Eerola wrote.
The fact that a member of the Roma community had filed charges against Eerola caused Blomerus to get hate mail.
“A lot of them are angry with me,” Blomerus told Migrant Tales in August. “One was even angry because he considered it an insult that a Roma would bring charges against a white Finn.”
Four questions about the Finnish chapter of The State of Islamophobia in Europe report
The State of Islamophobia in Europe report was published on Monday. Linda Hyökki, is the researcher who did the report on Finland. Migrant Tales asked her four questions about the report.
Linda Hyökki*
Migrant Tales (MT): What surprised you the most about doing the last report on Finland?
Leena Hyökki: “There were no drastically surprising changes when compared to the previous years’ reports. Islamophobia in its nature as a social phenomenon as well as in its manifestations within structural discrimination remains to be throughout the years. Political discourse, grassroot organizations spreading hate speech, demonstrations against alleged “Islamization”, microaggressions, as well as (mostly) Muslim women’s victimization have continued from 2015 (and before) up until now.
MT: In 2017, the PS imploded. Do you see this as a retreat for Islamophobia in Finland?
LH: I do not think so. Islamophobia is not only dependent on one party’s politics. Manifestations of Islamophobia in social life do reflect political discourse – especially when politicians Islamophobic statements are taken as a form of normalization of racism and hostility towards Muslims, kinds of legitimization of the discourse from top down – but civil society in large have their own impact on politics (we live after all in a democratic society!).
The State of Islamophobia in Europe report offers a distressing picture of the rise of such a social ill
The third issue of the annual The State of Islamophobia in Europe was published on Monday, and it paints a very worrying picture of Islamophobia in Europe.
We have unfortunately seen in countries like Finland how hate speech and toothless measures to contain all forms of racism and discrimination have put in harm’s way other religious minorities like the Jews.
One key recommendation of the report is the recognition and acknowledgment of the specific form of racism targeting Muslims.
The report states: “The denial of the very existence of Islamophobia/anti-Muslim racism/anti-Muslim hate crime in Europe by many demonstrates the need for an appropriate effort and political will to tackle this normalized racism and its manifestations that are deeply entrenched in European societies, institutions, and states.”
And continues: “With the generalized suspicion against Muslims, it is of utmost importance for EU policy makers not to fall into the trap of treating Muslims as potential problems but rather as human beings whose fundamental rights can be violated. Combatting Islamophobia is not about preventing radicalism or terrorism […] it is about politically addressing structural forms of discrimination and racism affecting Muslims or those perceived as such.”
Read the full report here.
The rise of Islamophobia in countries like Finland are evident in parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) and Blue Reform* have made Finland a less safe place for migrants and especially Muslims.
After these two parties, the National Coalition Party (NCP) is seen by some as the most Islamophobic.
Study finds ethnic profiling is a widespread problem in Finland among the police, Finnish Border Guards and security guards
The Stopped research and journalism project, Finland’s first-ever comprehensive study on ethnic profiling, published its finding Tuesday. While there have been scores of stories published about ethnic profiling on publications like Migrant Tales, there is nothing surprising by the study’s findings.
If there is something that surprised us it was that ethnic profiling, despite continuous denials by the police, is so widespread that it is a serious problem.
One reason why ethnic profiling is so widespread in Finland is because it is condoned and encouraged politically by politicians, even ministers.
The big question is what will the police, Finnish Border Guards and security guards do to tackle ethnic profiling? Taking into account the anti-immigration atmosphere in Finland, it is clear that such measures will take time and happen slowly.
You can read the full study here.
Here are some headlines of the study:
YLE NEWS: Study: Ethnic profiling in Finland continues despite legal prohibition.
Here are some of the conclusions of the study on ethnic profiling:
- “The Finnish Alien’s Act (where ethnic profiling is clearly stated that it is illegal) does not give a sufficient criterion for reasonable suspicion, and thus the police are not required to specify the grounds for their checks. The subsequent wide discretionary power leads police to use their intuition or ‘gut feeling,’ discussed as tacit knowledge in the research, to identify targets of control.”