Month: November 2018

Police Uiversity College: Hate crimes rise in 2017 by 8% to 1,165 cases on year

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Hate crimes* in Finland during 2017 rose by 7.97% to 1,165 cases compared with 1,079 the previous year, according to the Finnish Police University College. 

One of the most worrying matters that the report revealed was the 58% rise in attacks due to religion. The lion’s share of hate crimes (69.8%/813 cases) were due to ethnic or national background while 20.2% (235) were motivated by the person’s religion.

According to the report, Muslims were the most common hate crime targets.

A person’s disability was the cause for 4.9% percent of the cases as well as in 4.9% of cases due to sexual orientation. Twelve hate crimes, or 1%, were based on the victim’s transgender identity or appearance.

“In relation to the number of foreign citizens resident in Finland, the citizens of Afghanistan experienced the highest frequency of crimes motived by ethnic or national origin in 2017,” said the report.

According to the European Islamophobic Report (EIR) 2017, hate crime and speech against Muslims was caused by the tragic events of a knife attack by a young Moroccan asylum seeker in the summer of 2017.  “The incident also sparked tensions among the public which resulted in experiences of increased harassment and attacks against Muslim citizens,” reported EIR.

Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland stated that apart from the stabbing that took place last year in Turku, lack of leadership to speak out against hate crime and racism is one factor that it fuelling the problem.

A report published this week by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) showed that racist harassment of people of African descent was highest in Finland (63%). The hate crime report by the Police University College and the one by FRA are related and show a disturbing social ill in Finland that appears to be gaining ground.

Suspected hate crime cases rose by 8.07% last year o 1,165 compared with 1,079 cases.  Source: Police University College

he highest amount of hate crimes were reported by Finnish citizens [1] (655 cases/65%) followed by Somalis (45/4%), Iraqis (82/8%), Afghans (42/4%), Russians (22/2%), and Estonians (17/2%).

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European Agency of Fundamental Rights: Finland has the most racial harassment cases against PAD of 12 EU countries surveyed

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A new study by the European Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveals that a third of people of African descent (PAD) surveyed have experienced racial harassment in the last five years. That’s not all: Perceived racist harassment was highest in Finland (63%) and least prevalent in Malta 20% (see chart below).

“It is a reality both shameful and infuriating: racism based on the colour of a person’s skin remains a pervasive scourge throughout the European Union,” writes FRA director Michael O’Flaherty in the report’s forward. “…It is a reality both shameful and infuriating: racism based on the colour of a person’s skin remains a pervasive scourge throughout the European Union.”

Finland’s dubious ranking as the highest five-year rate of perceived racist violence against PAD has only ourselves to blame and a result of our lost decade (2011-2019), where we allowed racism and our silence to create the hostile migrants against migrants, especially PAD, today.

Migrant Tales wrote: “Why are the Center Party and National Coalition Party in bed with an anti-immigration and nationalist party like the PS [Perussuomalaiset]?*”

Such a bedfellow has cost Finland dearly in racism, discrimination and hostile environment.

Read the full Guardian story here.

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Far-right vigilante group Soldiers of Odin provokes migrants in East Helsinki

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Without anything better to do than to provoke visible migrants, some 30 members of the far-right Soldiers of Odin were at East Helsinki’s Puhos shopping mall on Monday, according to a video by Finnish Somalimedia Warsan.

According to the Helsinki Times, “shoppers and visitors of the mall were frightened by the group and stayed inside the shops. The show off seems to have gone without incidents or violence. Police presence can also be seen In the video, although they do not seem to interfere. ”

While the Soldiers of Odin have not given any statement about their presence at the East Helsinki shopping mall, it’s clear that the far-right group, which has close ideological ties with neo-Nazi groups, is desperate for attention.

Apart from some cities in Finland like Kemi, where the group is active, the original aim of the Soldiers of Odin is to protect Finnish white women and children from Muslims.

The Finnish police’s and media’s ambiguous stand against the vigilante group gave it some acceptance in Finland.

One may rightfully ask why was it so difficult for the police and media to grasp immediately that the Soldiers of Odin are a symptom of a social ill.

The answer is obvious.

See the video here.

The Puhos mall was in the news in February when the police, Border Guard, health officials carried out spot checks at the East Helsinki shopping center.

Migrant Tales wrote back then:  “While it is a good matter that the Helsinki police service is accountable for its actions, the tweets say nothing about the police’s alleged behavior at the mosque. Why did they spot check everyone who entered and left the mosque? What about the police dog and the shoes? There is no tweet about a policeman who allegedly snapped back and said that ‘this was his country’ and that he had a right to ask the person for his ID.”

New York Times: Hillary Clinton should blame European racism, not migrants for the rise of populism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Hillary Clinton says that migration is the main reason for feeding European populism.

Migrant Tales disagrees. Europe is such a racist region plagued by its colonial and post-colonial history that was and still has its hands drenched in genocide and exploitation.

Don’t blame the migrants, Clinton. Blame European racism for the rise in populism.

 

Read the full story here.

 

 

A Cameroonian national football player’s 18-day detention and nightmare in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Bad luck and alleged ethnic profiling by the Finnish Border Guard at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport led to the detention of Christian Heumi Kabon, a Cameroonian who plays for that country’s national team. He ended up detained at the Metsälä immigration removal center in Helsinki for 18 days, from October 30 to November 16.

At the Metsälä immigration removal center, a detained person cannot leave the premises. For many, the removal center is the last place where they are kept before being deported out of the country.

Cyrille Belinga had invited his friend Kabon to visit him in Helsinki. He bought him a one-way ticket to Helsinki from Lisbon, where he had entered the country legally. Portugal and Finland are part of the Schengen area, which means relatively free travel without border controls.

“I told him that I would pick him up at the airport on Tuesday [October 30],” said Belinga. “Cameroonians call each other by their nicknames. This is why Christian did not remember right off the bat my real name when asked by customs officials.”

Belinga claims that the only reason why agents stopped him was because he is black. It is a good example of racism, according to him. Legally, he had a right to travel freely in the Schengen area of which Finland is a signatory.

“My friend could not tell the border guards my real name and to top it off, I had lost my phone on that day,” he continued. “So I could not be reached when the border agent called me.”

As a result, Kabon ended up at Metsälä where he awaited deporation proceedings.

Read the original story here.

Thanks to the efforts of lawyer Miro del Gaudio of Lex Gaudius, the hapless Cameroonian football player was released after complaints and an appeal to the adminisrative court of Helsinki.

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YLE A-studio talk show’s question and image sum up Finland’s migration and demographic challenges ahead

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Monday’s A-studio talk show debated Finland’s low birthrate and what the country could do to challenge the threats of an ageing and shrinking population as well as how migration could ease such woes. Present at the talk show were Left Alliance chairwoman Li Andersson, Justice Minister (National Coalition Party) Antti Häkkänen, and Nordea bank economist Olli Kärkkäinen.

While there was nothing new that said at the talk show, there was one question and one image that summed it up.

Kärkkäinen asked a very important question: “Even if politicians are so much in agreement that we need migrants, especially labor migrants, why has so little been done?”

The host asks the Nordea economist to answer his question.

“It’s easy to speak here [in these talk shows] about students staying to live in Finland and get a residence permit if they search for work,” he continued. “We can slash red tape, give out residence permit faster, but for some reason, there is little progress [in changing the present situation]. Let’s hope that demographic pressures will bring changes [faster] when the next government takes power.”

One reason why the present government has done so little is the Perussuomalaisiet*, and Blue Reform, which are populist anti-immigration parties. The former was in government but after it split into two factions in 2017, the Blue Reform is in government even if it popularity in opinion polls hovers around 2%.

Finland will hold parliamentary elections in April 2019.

Another striking feature of the talk show was the background picture of a migrant working as a cleaner.

Is this how YLE and Finland see migrants? Are they just cheap labor to do menial work that Finns don’t want to do?

Watch the full A-studio talk show here. Can’t foreigners do anything better than work for cleaning companies?

Considering Finland’s ineffective and inhumane immigration policy, and if the migrant gets a residence permit, his or her rights at the workplace are far from satisfactory.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY (Gustave M. Gilbert): “Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What characteristics unite anti-immigration politicians like the Perussuomalaiset* and Blue Reform of Finland? Captain Gustave Mark Gilbert, the Army psychologist at the Nuremberg trials (1945-46), said what the Nazi war criminals on trial had an incapacity to feel with their fellow men. That fellow men and women are today Muslims, among other groups. “Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy,” he said.

Read the full story here.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way. 

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Pakolaisista tulee Suomessa rikollisia ilman tehtyä rikosta

Posted on by Reija Härkönen

Kun pakolainen on Suomessa vastaanottokeskuksessa, hän on vielä tavallinen pakolainen muiden pakolaisten joukossa. Häntä pidetään pelossa ja epävarmuudessa, monesti vuosia, mutta hän saa sen verran ruokaa ja avustusta, että pysyy fyysisesti kohtuukunnossa.

Kun pakolainen on saanut kielteisen päätöksen turvapaikkahakemukseen, eikä häntä voida jostain syystä poistaa maasta, hänestä tulee laiton. Hänet potkaistaan kadulle kyselemättä, onko hänelle vokissa muiden hädänalaisten joukossa syntynyt turvaverkko, joka auttaisi häntä eteenpäin. perustuslaki

Jos pakolainen järjestää kohtelustaan mielenilmauksen, hänestä tulee anarkisti ja yhteiskunnan vihollinen. Samoin käy suomalaisille vapaaehtoisille, joilla vielä on rakkautta ja myötätuntoa. Hekoittavat auttaa kunnon ihmisiä, joilla ei näytä olevan tulevaisuutta tai edes elämää. Ministerit ehdottavat lakia, jonka nojalla auttaminen kielletään.

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Inhimillisyytensä säilyttäneiden ihmisten avulla pakolainen kuitenkin saa joskus jonkinlaisen otteen elämään: saa ystäviä, pääsee töihin, suomen kielen taito lisääntyy. He ovat ahkeria ja tekevät kaikkensa, siksi he edistyvät nopeasti. Heillä on vielä hiukan toivoa ihan tavallisesta elämästä.

Kun pakolainen sitten päätetään pakkopalauttaa, vokista tai yksityismajoituksesta, töistä tai koulusta, hänestä tulee vaarallinen rikollinen. Kolmea tavallista nuorta miestä palauttamaan tarvitaan yksityislentokone ja viisitoista poliisia. Viimeksi tällä viikolla tehtiin yksi sellainen lento. Kabuliin, Afganistaniin, jonne ei nyt pitäisi palauttaa ketään, ei etenkään hazara-vähemmistön jäseniä, joita Taleban vainoaa systemaattisesti.

Ulkomaalaislaki

Saatuaan tällaisen urhoollisen sankarimatkan suoritettua Suomen poliisi laittaa aina voitonmerkin Twitteriin. “Tolkun ihmiset” ja rasistit käyvät kiittämässä. Pahoja tekoja on aina eräs osa kansasta puolustelemassa lailla, järjestyksellä ja turvallisuudella. Niin taas tässäkin maassa, vaikka kovin kauhistelemme rautasaappaiden kopinaa muissa maissa.

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