Se sabe ya desde hace mucho tiempo que los senegaleses que viven en la Argentina son discriminados y hasta brutalmente tratados por las fuerzas del “orden” público. Así pasó otra vez en los barrios porteños de Flores y Once donde, según Megafón, hubo más de mil senegaleses fueron detenidos.
Todo esto huele a algo mal y la pregunta que deberíamos hacer es ¿por qué la justicia porteña ordenó ahora el allanamiento en un domicilio (Alsina 2677) donde viven trabajadores ambulantes senegaleses?
¿Es una coincidencia que la Argentina tendrá el 27 de octubre elecciones presidenciales, por diputados y por senadores? Es una coincidencia que el jefe de gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, pertenece al mismo partido que Mauricio Macri?
Escribe Megafón: “Ingresaron efectivos policiales con muchísima violencia y desde organizaciones de trabajadores de la calle y organismos de derechos humanos, denuncia una clara persecución del gobierno de Horacio Rodríguez Larreta contra los inmigrantes.”
La Argentina no sólo tiene una larga y rica historia de inmigración europea sino, también, una parte de nuestra historia blanqueada es de los afroargentinos y pueblos originarios.
A comienzos del siglo XIX, un tercio de la población de la Argentina fue negra, según el historiador John Lynch.
No es la primera vez que los seguidores del Presidente Macri usan mano dura contra inmigrantes vulnerables como los africanos, los bolivianos, los peruanos, entre otros grupos.
El trato a los senegaleses es una vergüenza que debería ser fuertemente condenado.
The snap elections in Austria saw the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) suffer a blistering defeat with the number of MPs plummeting by 37.3% to 32 from 51. Sebastian Kurz of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) was the biggest winner getting 38.4% of the popular vote and gaining 11 MPs to 73 MPs.
FPÖ vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and his ministers were forced to resign in May after a video published by two German newspapers offered damaging evidence of him allegedly offering government contracts in return for political support from Moscow.
Austrian election result. Sebastian Krutz’ ÖVP is the clear winner with the Social Democrats (SPÖ) coming in second place and in third the FPÖ. The Greens (Grune) did well in the election as well. Source: Austrian interior ministry.
Even if the FPÖ got clobbered in the election, minorities such as Muslims are worried about Kruz’ anti-Muslim rhetoric. “He did not understand that repeating hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric in a nicer tone does not defeat far-right populists,” said Nina Horaczek, an investigative reporter at Falter, who was quoted in NPR. “It makes them stronger.”
Even if 2019 was supposed to be the year when far-right parties break down the election door, the Danish People’s Party, which is a close ideological ally of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, lost 21 of its seats in July to end up with 16 seats in that country’s parliamentary elections.
The PS, in which the Danish election result sent shivers up the party’s spine, its political message under the leadership of Jussi Halla-aho is entrenched in far-right and radical-right ideology.
Copying the tactics of Lega Nord’s Salvini in giving firey Islamophobic messages, the PS has used the same rhetoric to gain support. Such violent language against minorities is like a flat bicycle tire: You must pump it constantly for air to remain in the tire.
The ever-Islamophobic and racist language of the PS not only continue to fuel the hostile environment but directly incites and legitimizes violence against migrants and minorities.
* The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. 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.
Migrant Tales insight: This short letter to the Finnish public is an example of Finland’s inhumane immigration policy. As a refugee, you will get a residence permit, but the price will be a high one: You will have to live alone, separated indefinitely from your loved one.
The Syrian refugee story is one of the many cruel faces of the Finnish Immigration Service.
“I got married on 2015 before an almost 7 months of leaving my country to Finland.
After that I got resident permit and applied for family reunification so I coul live together with my beloved wife. After almost a year and a half wait, my wife got an appointment at the Finnish embassy in Beirut (because my wife can’t visit Turkey as a Syrian ); after that, we had to wait almost another year for a decision from Migration (The Finnish Immigration Service) which was negative. I was devasated and lost as my wife was too but a social worker told me to contact a lawyer which she gave me his name and number. The social worker said he is a very good lawyer.
I went to him and he said, after reading the decision, that migration has some doubts about your marriage. He said that he will write them my answers to dispell these doubts and everything will be fine.
But also after waiting some months a second negative decision came. I was totally broken and told the social worker and lawyer about this. I said that I will go back to my country because I can’t waste my life and lose my wife specially after I lived with her and loved her dearly long before we were married. The social worker and lawyer calmed me down and ensured me that it was another mistake by migration and the lawyer will write another appeal to the high court, which will rule in my favor. After waiting for 10 months, the high cout overturned my appeal.
Before this, my lawyer advised me that if I wanted I could meet my wife in another country and bring some pictures with plane tickets for both of us, hotel booking and send it to the court. I was able to see my wife for the first time since 2015, when I came to Finland.
I can’t describe how bad is my psychological situation and my wife telling me that I have to go back to Syria because we don’t have any hope. My problem is that it is impossible for me to go back to Syria because of the bad situation there. Our problem, our separation, got worse because living without my soulmate was hard.
I can’t focus on my studies or anything else. I feel dead inside.
I’m doing everything possible to bring her to my side in Finland. Maybe I have to go back to Syria, even if I will die there.”
21st September is the European day of action against Islamophobia and religious intolerance. This day makes echoes to the dramatic Christchurch terror attack on March 15, 2019 that made 51 dead, 49 injuries and shocked the international community.
In
order to help European policy makers to assert the extent of anti-muslim racism,
the SETA releases the European
Islamophobia Report 2018. This report investigates in detail the
underlying dynamics that directly or indirectly support the rise of anti-Muslim
racism in Europe in 2018.
In
fact, many surveys such as the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report
(TE-SAT), published by EUROPOL, already point out the growing danger of
right-wing terrorism. Yet, they never mentions the anti-Muslim ideological
framework working behind this trend. The European
Islamophobia Report 2018 aims at filling this gap.
By
gathering 39 local scholars, experts, and civil society activists specialized
on racism and human rights, the European
Islamophobia Report 2018 shows how the banalization of Islamophobic
discourse in the European public sphere as well as the constant anti-Muslim
discrimination in workplace, education and justice pave the way for violent
actions against Muslim and their institutions.
The
report is the result of a cooperative work between the SETA foundation, Leopold
Weiss Institute, and the European
Union that funded the whole project.
***
The
European day of action against Islamophobia and religious intolerance is the
opportunity for all of us to remember that Muslims are among the first victims of the rise of
far-right extremism in Europe. In Austria, the Office for Documenting Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim
Racism recorded an increase of approximately 74% of documented anti-Muslim
racist acts in its report for 2018. In France, the Collectif contre l’islamophobie en France recorded an increase of
52%. In the UK, governmental bodies recorded a rise in 2017-18 of
religion-specific cases by a staggering 40% (double the figure of 2015/16).
Instances of vandalism directed at places of worship also recorded a
significant (50%) rise in the same period. In the Netherlands, the
Anti-discrimination Agencies (ADVs) announced that 91% of a total of 151 incidents
of religious discrimination reported to the police were related to Muslims.
The Anti-discrimination Agencies received 304 reports of religious
discrimination, two thirds of which were directed against Muslims.
Women constitute the majority of the victims of
Islamophobia, especially when they wear headscarves. For instance, the Collectif contre
l’islamophobie en France (CCIF) notes that 70% of
the victims of Islamophobic acts in France are women. Attacks against Muslim
women range from verbal aggressions, denial of access to services, Muslim women
forcibly having the headscarf removed, and go as far as attempted rape and
physical attacks.
***
Islamophobia is not only a threat for Muslim
communities established in the European continent but also for the security and
the stability of European states. Islamophobic terror attacks illustrates the
extent to which anti-Muslim racism promoted in far-right and nationalistic
circles represents a concrete danger to human rights, national security, and
the European model of coexistence.
In 2018, direct attacks against Muslims led to deaths
and serious injuries. In Italy, for instance, a man shot and killed a
Senegalese street seller, Idy Diene (54), a well-known member of his local
mosque in Florence. In Greece, far-right groups attacked Afghan refugees,
including women and children, who gathered and protested in the central square
of Lesvos about the delay in getting their asylum cards. During the attack
racist slogans like “burn them all” were heard. In total, 28 people were
injured and hospitalized during this attack. In Finland, three Finnish youths
brutally attacked a Pakistani migrant in Vantaa, stabbed him 20-30 times and
repeatedly wounded him with an axe causing, among other injuries, a fractured
skull. In the United Kingdom, three young men deliberately drove a stolen
vehicle into pedestrians heading into the Al-Majlis Al-Hussain Islamic Centre
(Cricklewood, London), injuring three worshippers. In France, several
groups planned or called for planning terror attacks against Muslim people such
as the AFO (Action of Operational
Forces) that was about to physically attack hundreds of imams, Muslim women,
and mosques in the summer of 2018.
***
On this 21st September European day of action against Islamophobia and religious intolerance, it is time to reflect on this growing threat and to find ways for seriously tackling anti-Muslim racism in Europe. A close reading of the European Islamophobia Report 2018 may be a good start.
For further information about the chapter on Finland in the European Islamophobia Report 2018, contact ENRIQUE TESSIERI, 040 8400773/[email protected].
Or get in touch directly with the editors ENES BAYRAKLI FARID HAFEZ at [email protected].
On one of my nightly walks on Tuukalankatu in Mikkeli, I see a Soldiers of Odin sticker on a lampost. Since these types of groups are toxic and hazardous to society, I scrape off the sticker.
Now you see it, but now you don’t.
Soldiers of Odin before and after. Photo: Enrique Tessieri
The cruel arm of Finland’s asylum policy is not only Migri (The Finnish Immigration Service) but too many politicians who lack the courage to show their humanity and empathy for others.
One of the consequences of one’s journey to Europe is not only many years of waiting and despair, but death.
In the rural region of North Karelia in eastern Finland, there is an island called n-word in Finnish. Yes, you heard right: n-word, according to Journalisti, a publication of the Union of Journalists of Finland.
But that’s not all.
In Finland, the n-word is inappropriate and racist. The island in North Karelia is not the only example of the n-word in Finnish geography.
The offensive word explains why the Union of Journalists North Karelia (PKJY), which owns the small island, applied to the Institute of Languages of Finland (Kotus) to change the name to Uutiseksi (News).
The proposal by PKJY, which approve the name change at a board meeting earlier this year, turned to Kotus but its request was turned down.
“Even if the n-word is used in a derogatory [and racist] manner today, the name cannot be changed because it makes some feel uncomfortable,” Kotus said in a statement.
Somebody should enlighten Kotus that the usage of the n-word today is racist and offensive, “not uncomfortable.”
The decision by Kotus is a good indication of how Finland deals with racism, or how it does nothing substantial to challenge it.
The island derives its name from lehtin-word, which was what some called journalists and people working for the media in the 1980s.
Finland puts a lot of effort into its integration program. Earlier this year, with the sexual assault cases in Oulu, we saw the then government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä blame asylum seekers for not integratingand that our integration problem was a failure.
All of these accusations had one matter in mind for then Minister of Interior Kai Mykkänen and the National Coalition Party: the April 2019 parliamentary election. Mykkänen went as far as to suggest giving a test to asylum seekers about Finnish values.
A realistic picture of integration in Finland? Source: Metropolia.
As we all know, the suggestion of giving an integration test is only intended for public consumption. What are Finnish values anyway? Is one of them being a supporter of institutional racism?
What do you think white Finns teach asylum seekers about Finland at integration courses? Some may do a good job but at the end of the day, many teach asylum seekers to accept institutional racism by telling him or her fairy tales about our society. In effect, such teachers are saying that this is the way things are done and you must accept it.
One example is when such courses speak of gender equality. They do not tell women, who are asylum seekers, on how to combat labor discrimination. Moreover, they don’t give the students skimpy information in many cases about changing institutional racism.
If we are serious in turning people into active citizens, we must do away with much of our exceptionalism and superiority complexes we have of other people. Tackling all forms of racism should be a much higher priority.
The next question is why we don’t do that and with greater determination?
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho gave us on Yle Ykkösaamu his usual anti-immigration blah blah and why Finland should relax its hate speech laws.
In the interview, Halla-aho, who was convicted of ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion in 2012, defended the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association and played down PS MP Juha Mäenpää’s description in parliament that asylum seekers are a non-human “invasive species.”
Mäenpää is the same politician who stated in 2015 that “God had answered his prayers” after an asylum reception center was razed by fire.
While these types of counterarguments by Halla-aho, who has steered the party in into the far-right ideological lap of leaders like Lega’s Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, have no significance because the PS leader would even find arguments to justify the rise to power of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler in 1933.
Helsinki University criminal law professor Kimmo Nuotio threw some cold water on Halla-aho’s claim that hate speech laws have no place in an open society. Apart from pointing out that the PS’ proposal is political, he did not consider the ongoing debate healthy for democracy.
Moreover, the number of ethnic agitation cases that reach the courts are still modest as the table below shows.
Ethnic agitation cases that were taken to court in 2018. Even if such cases rose by 138.5% last year to 31, it is still a tiny amount. Source: Justice Ministry.
“Personally, I find this type of discussion harmful,” Nuotio said, “it’s an attempt to undercut the basis for these laws.”
One matter that the Ykkösaamu journalist should have asked is why do we have laws against hate speech? The answer is obvious. Without them, it would be open season for racists and parties like the PS openly harass, attack, label and socially exclude vulnerable groups like Muslims for their political gain.
The argument used by Halla-aho to not open Finland’s labor markets to outside the EU is equally deceiving. Adding the usual fear-mongering that outside the EU there are half a billion people who could come to work, he claimed that such workers would drive down salaries.
Possibly valid to some extent, such people in our labor market like now would force our authorities to do a much better job in regulating markets and ensuring that exploitation does not become the norm.
* The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. 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.
