Month: April 2020

Finland’s populist party’s #coronavirus kiss of death to minorities it wants to oppress and forsake

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the matters that the coronavirus has exposed as well. is how populist anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* assail migrants and minorities, especially Muslims.

Helsinki Mayor Jan Vapaavuori was quoted as saying in statement that he is concerned by the rapid rise of coronavirus infections among the Somali speaking community.

“Close to 200 cases have been identified to date, which translates to 1.8 percent of the Somali community in the capital, compared with the 0.2 percent average among all of Helsinki’s residents,” the statement said. “In light of this recent worrying trend, the City of Helsinki and HUS hospitals have stepped up their efforts to prevent further contagion.”

While Migrant Tales alerted its readers about how minorities could be more susceptible to infection, the PS has criticized state-owned broadcaster Yle for offering information about coronavirus in the Somali, Kurdish, Farsi and Arabic languages.

One PS official that was highly critical of the broadcasts was party secretary Simo Grönroos. “On morning TV they suggested that broadcasts in [these people’s] mother tongue should be expanded. This is not the way to go. If they want to hear the news in Arabic they should move to an Arabic-speaking country.”

It was last summer that PS MP Ano Turtiainen thanked the ebola virus for doing its part in keeping population growth in Africa.

Back then, he had no idea that the white people like him in Europe would be the victims of a deadly killer called coronavirus.

While exceptionalism and many other blindspots may keep us from seeing inequality in our health care system in Finland and other EU countries, the European Network Against Racism is spot on by stating, the #inequality doesn’t just make pandemics like #Covid_19 worse – it could cause them.

Look out also for a racist blame game against minorities for higher coronavirus infections.

Social inequality is the culprit, not the minorities’ fault because his or her illtreatment, microaggressions, and social exclusion may have undermined his language and social skills.

UPDATED: How many coronavirus infected refugees at the Espoo asylum reception center?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

After MTV broke a story about coronavirus infections at the Luona-managed Nihtisilta reception center in Espoo, Migrant Tales got confirmation Wednesday from the company that there are two infected asylum seekers with coronavirus.

We had reported Tuesday, citing a source at the reception center, that the possible number of infected asylum seekers could number 7-10.

Migrant Tales got in touch with Luona’s Business Director Suvi Salonen, who did not return our call or answer our email concerning the number of infected asylum seekers.

Some measures taken by the asylum reception center is that none of the residents eat together in the cafeteria. Contrary to the infected residents, whose food is brought to them, each person gets his food from the cafeteria and eats it in his room.

The Nihtisilta reception center is bursting with trash.

A Migrant Tales story last week asked why the government has been issuing social distancing recommendations to avoid crowded environments, but these guidelines did not apply to reception centers. Why hadn’t they taken steps to make such camps less crowded?

Ahti Tolvanen wrote: “The problem has been noticed and measures taken in other countries but not in Finland. In Greece, two refugee reception centers were recently placed under special quarantine restrictions…Portugal has taken a more proactive measure by issuing temporary resident permits to all asylum seekers until the summer to allow them to try and find safe work and accommodations and to escape high-risk institutionalization.”

Fears of a coronavirus outbreak at Espoo’s Nihtisilta reception center

Posted on by Migrant Tales

MTV published today the dire situation of refugees at the Luona-managed Nihtisilta reception center in Espoo. An anonymous Iraqi asylum seeker said there is no soap to wash there hands, and there is a lot of concern about coronavirus spreading.

Migrant Tales got in touch with an asylum reception center resident in Espoo who confirmed the concern and dire situation of some asylum seekers.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

“We are Iraqi, Afghans, and Somali refugees [at the Nihtisilta asylum reception center] and have been living there for five years,” said a refugee. “There is not enough hygiene care [by Luona] since we cannot afford to buy sanitizers.”

The asylum seeker said that all the money they receive monthly is 90 euros. The reception center does not provide any soap, detergents, or towels.

On each floor of the reception center, there are two bathrooms, which houses about 100 people.

“On the third floor [of the reception center] there is coronavirus infected asylum seekers,” he continued. “They [asylum reception staff] don’t give us any information about those that were [allegedly] infected.”

The asylum seeker said that he and others are especially concerned about the situation.

“There are no staffers, management, social worker, a nurse at the reception center,” he concluded. “Only security guards and kitchen workers.”

A bit of history

News about the Nihtisilta reception center was published in Suomen Kuvalehti and Migrant Tales about the death of an Afghan asylum seeker, Jayyed Abbas Jaffari (1995-2016).

Luona denied that there was any negligence or inadequate treatment on their behalf surrounding Jaffari’s death.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

In January 2016, there were a lot of stories coming out of reception centers that pointed to the ill and deficient treatment especially by Luona, a private company, of asylum seekers.

Here’s what Migrant Tales has heard after Jaffari’s death:

  • Employees at Luona have resigned due to the poor and humiliating treatment of asylum seekers as well as to the deficient medical attention they receive by the company;
  • Luona’s employees are informed not to call an ambulance without prior permission of the manager, who is difficult to reach and does not answer the phone;
  • One of the reasons why some patients, probably Jaffari, didn’t get to the hospital on time was because they had to get permission from the manager, who is speculated to be sleeping on Sunday morning and/or had his mobile phone switched off;
  • Jaffari visited the nurse at the Espoo reception center for three consecutive days. He was told to take Paracetamol and drink hot tea;
  • The manager who was on duty did not appear at work for two weeks after Jaffari’s death;
  • Many other medical treatment issues of asylum seekers are reported daily at Luona’s reception centers;
  • Employees and asylum seekers have complained to FIS about the situation;
  • FIS and the police have brought up Jaffari’s death and are said to be carrying out some sort of investigation to clear up the matter;
  • The Finnish parliament sent a questionnaire to Luona inquiring about how it runs its reception centers.

During 2016, Migrant Tales published score of stories about the poor treatment of asylum seekers at some Finnish asylum reception centers.

Stories published by Migrant Tales’s “Supermen”* on asylum reception centers during 2016.

January

February

March

April

May 

June

July

August

September

October

November 

December

* “The Supermen” are a group of concerned citizens who helped to expose the abuses and racism at some of Finland’s reception centers. Some of them want to be anonymous because it would impede their priceless work in exposing future injustices and abuses of asylum seekers, migrants, and minorities. 

Coronavirus: When will it end?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

We have all heard the case for increased testing for coronavirus (COVID-19). But we need other tests like those that will judge our politicians and how they handle COVID-19.

An article in the Washington Post interviewed a black man in Louisiana who said that “wearing a facemask won’t protect us from our history [of slavery and Jim Crow].”

In the United States alone, coronavirus strikes and kills blacks, Latinos and other minorities disproportionately.

Apart from exposing our wasteful investments on defense and weapons spending, which give us a false sense of security, the pandemic exposes in our faces as well the chronic social inequalities of our societies.

Source: BuzzFeed.com.

Not only are the most vulnerable groups suffering in the United States but minorities in the UK and other countries of the world.

There is mounting evidence – and it should not surprise us – that blacks, Asians and other minority communities in the UK are hit the hardest. According to the BBC, over a third of the patients critically ill in hospitals are minorities.

It would not surprise me either in Europe that members of the Romany minority and Muslims may experience much higher infection and death rates than white Europeans.

The fact that we still do not have any official statistics on the latter is quite revealing. Such information is also important because minority communities must take steps to protect themselves from the deadly virus.

When will COVID-19 end?

I believe that the pandemic will end when we put on the defensive and tackle effectively social inequality, boundless greed, environmental destruction, laissez-faire globalization and capitalism, populists that worship dictators, and the billionaires that are screwing things up big time.

Read the full story (in Spanish) here

In an interview in Córdoba three years ago, Finnish screenwriter Aki Kaurismäki said: “We must exterminate the rich and the politicians who lick their asses.”

While the rich indirectly kill people through their wealth accumulation, “extermination” may mean forcing rich people to pay much higher taxes and severely cut off their money machines, which are the capital markets.

Such wealth should not end up in their greedy pockets of the 1% but used for creating global well-being and improving the lives of everyone on this planet.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: How military spending screws us and the coronavirus pandemic

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

In light of the early warning signs and red lights flashing concerning the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), there is a moral to the pandemic that is wreaking havoc: military spending, investment in weapon technology, and building walls will not keep you secure.

How does the quote below tweeted by Natalia del Cid sound like?

“So much investment in weapons due to the threat of war and a virus is screwing us because we did not invest in science, health care, and education.”

Source: Twitter (Natalia del Cid).

Imagine, for a moment, that instead of spending vast sums of money on what US President Dwight Eisenhower called the industrial-military complex, we’d spend it on global well-being?

Source: Twitter.

Like so many others before and after him, Eisenhower sounded the alarm: “So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

We should also tell the profiteers and fat-cat billionaire capitalists at the service of war that the only land they can rightfully claim as their own is the soil that covers their coffin.

Coronavirus is a new calling for humanity, a second chance, possibly.

Albanian construction worker: Being the father of a child is not a valid reason for Migri to grant you a residence permit

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Separation or divorce from a partner can be an especially trying matter in Finland if you are a foreigner and a man. We have learned of a new case that was brought to our attention.

This is how it usually how events pan out: A foreigner gets married to a Finnish woman, they have a child and then divorce. The man does not get a residence permit. He is forced to leave the country or get deported.

Below is a decision in 2018 by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to reject Abul’s* residence permit on family grounds.

Source: Migrant Tales.

Ardian* is a 24-year-old Albanian who moved to Finland a bit over three years ago. He came to Finland to find work. He met a Russian woman, got married, had a child, and separated.

“I have been waiting for three years to get my residence permit,” he said. “Even if I have a child in Finland, Migri, has turned down my requests.”

He said that he is appealing Migri’s decision in court and expects a decision soon, probably in April.

Ardian,* who lives in Vantaa, said that he has always worked (today in construction) in Finland, paid taxes and never asked for a cent of social welfare.

He said that he even moved to a construction site in Kittlä in Lapland and works today on top of a 39-meter tower. He said that if he refused to work in such high places, his boss would fire him.

Ardian claims that foreign construction workers do work that Finns would not normally do.

Since he does not have a residence permit, he can work legally but does not have any rights from Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland), even if given sick leave.

“I once fractured two fingers at work and the doctor gave me two-month sick leave,” he said. “I had to return back to work and could not stay at home because I wasn’t making any money. Kela refused to pay me any support.”

Apart from working with few rights, his daughter is one of the main reasons he wants to remain in Finland.

“It’s so unjust! If I could, I’d ask the Finnish authorities why I am being treated in this way,” Ardian continued. “I have a daughter, which I love very much but am not allowed to see. Don’t I have a right to stay in this country?”

See also

Ardian cited “differences in lifestyle” for his divorce with his wife.

“My ex-wife wanted us to live off Kela but I refused to,” he said without providing any further explanation.

Ardian said that returning to Albania was not an option for him.

“That whole country is so corrupt and there is a lot of crime there,” he concluded. “I cannot also go back because my daughter is here. She loves me very much.”

* The name of the person was changed to protect his identity.

A post-coronavirus world bonded by mistrust, suspicion, racial hatred and the four horsemen of the apocalypse

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If we look at the raw economic numbers, world trade is expected to plunge in 2020 by between 13% and 32%, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

While the WTO does not mention a word about the Great Depression (1929-1939) or how global economies contracted during that period, a 32% contraction would be on par with the plunge in trade during 1929-1932, according to The Guardian.

Read the full story here.

“The unavoidable declines in trade and output will have painful consequences for households and businesses,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo said, “on top of the human suffering caused by the disease itself.”

While it is still too early to predict if we will see a second Great Depression (1929-1939) since such an eventuality hinges on what policies governments instigate like protectionism, it’s clear that economic hard times will not treat migrants and minorities nicely.

Even during periods of economic growth like in the European Union during this century, we still have not succeeded at eradicating social ills like Islamophobia and the shameful treatment and persecution of the Romany minority.

The size of the minority does not matter when it comes to ethnic persecution. In 1933, when Hitler took power in Germany, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates there were 505,000 Jews out of a total population of 67 million. Half a million Jews accounted for less than 0.75% of Germany’s population.

The rise of fascism during the worst economic contraction in the history of the industrialized world did not foster ethnic understanding and respect but led to a terrible world war and the wholesale slaughter of an estimated six million Jews during the Holocaust that included half a million Roma.

Even if the historical context of the present coronavirus crisis is different from what happened in Germany and led to Hitler’s rise to power, why wouldn’t a severe economic downturn and draconian protectionist measures bring out again the monster in us?

In an interview with CNN in March, historian and professor Yuval Noah Harari stated that the lack of trust, closing borders and isolating oneself, are the most significant threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic

There is also another reason, in my opinion, why matters are going to get worse in Europe as our economies contract and knee-jerk nationalist reactions: We have failed to slay the same monsters of xenophobia and petty nationalism that gave us World War 2 in our eyes.

If we have failed at ridding racism from our societies during good economic timers, why would we succeed at such a challenging task during poor economic times?

If there is an image that evokes the challenges we face ahead, it is the four horsemen of the apocalypse, a Biblical reference appearing in the New Testament’s final book of Revelation. The four horsemen charging at us represent pestilence, famine, war, and death.

We have two choices today and tomorrow: to unite and rebuild or succumb to the four horsemen.

Ahti Tolvanen: coronavirus and us

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

The closure of hundreds of schools, theaters, gymnasiums, and restaurants as well as the closing off of the Province of Uusimaa very much gives the appearance that the government is serious about doing everything it can to protect the country from the COVID-19 epidemic sweeping the world.

It seems to show a willingness to take hard decisions in the interests of public safety and go beyond political convenience. I chanced the other day to meet a friend from Afghanistan who I had me through volunteering at church and we got to speaking about his friend in a similar situation. I asked if they were still meeting up.

“No, he was moved further north to a reception center in Central Finland”.

I was surprised to hear this in light of current deteriorating epidemic when people are being encouraged to stay where they are currently living. It also led me to enquire further into the situation regarding Refugee Reception Centers in general. There are over 4 000 persons living in crowded circumstances in 50 such centers all over Finland.

I sent a message to Interior Minister Marja Ohisalo to ask if something was being done to keep these crowded facilities from becoming hotbeds to spread the epidemic which has already killed 40 people in Finland. There was no answer.

The problem has been noticed and measures taken in other countries but not in Finland. In Greece two refugee reception centers were recently placed under special quarantine restrictions. This was after COVID-19 cases had been diagnosed among residents. Portugal has taken a more proactive measure by issuing temporary resident permits to all asylum seekers until the summer to allow them to try and find safe work and accommodations  and to escape high-risk institutionalization.

The government has been issuing all kinds of directions to keep people away from crowded environments. Why has it not closed refugee reception centers or at least taken steps to make them less crowded? It would seem to be quite easy to do this as the cost to keep a person in the reception center is on average 55 euros a day. There are certainly many landlords who would rent a room to someone for much less than  1650 euros a month, even in high rent locations such as Helsinki not to mention hostels and B n B’s. This would likely incur enough savings to arrange counselling and nursing services offsite.

These refugee centers have become identified with suicidal behaviour and other mental health problems and there is no need to allow things to get even worse by making them locations for spreading the epidemic as well. Improving the living situation of asylum seekers would not only benefit the residents but protect the society as a whole as well.

While we are on the subject of protecting people during the epidemic and particularly old people who are the group most at risk there have been other measures taken by the government involving non-citizens which put this into question. The ban on travel between Estonia and Finland comes to mind here. At the same time travel for work reasons between Sweden and Finland was allowed to continue. The latter mainly involves travel by Finns to work in Sweden.

The travel for work reasons between Finland and Estonia mainly involved Estonians coming to work in Finland. Many Estonians work in personal care services for seniors living alone at home as will as in homes providing care to the elderly. This situation has developed because it is hard to find workers in this field in Finland. Now many elderly persons are left without adequate care or have been placed in the hands of inexperienced Finnish substitutes. This situation could probably have been avoided by taking sensible precautionary measures such as testing the returning Estonians as there has continuously been unused testing capacity.

As the epidemic continues the whole idea of closing borders will seem more and more xenophobic. Persons who have recovered from the disease and developed immunity, as well as those tested as healthy, could  be admitted as well as allowed to travel abroad to carry out important business to help the economy to recover.

We will need international cooperation more than ever after this epidemic to address the many-facted environmental crises facing everyone, of which this epidemic is only one manifestation.

Moving to Europe was the right decision in 1978 even if my great grandfather is still turning in his grave

Posted on by Migrant Tales

My great grandfather Dante Tessieri and his future wife, Aida Guaimonti, sailed from Italy in the 1890s to Brazil. Dante was a learned man, a physicist, and an anarchist that housed strong political opinions. He was forced to leave Italy, like many millions of his countrymen, because of political reasons.

Of all my great grandparents, Dante is the one that I admire the most. I admire his courage so much that I gave one of my sons his name.

While I cannot confirm it, he was allegedly part of a plot to assassinate King Humbert. After being detained and jailed, he escaped and skipped the country moving to Brazil, where my grandfather, Nemo, was born.

In the late-1800s, about 20% of the Italian population knew how to write. Dante, and his father Serafino Tessieri, were one of the fortunate few who could read and write. This coupon above was found by chance on eBay. Dante is the lighthouse keeper of the island of Pantelleria. Note Dante’s beautiful handwriting.

Millions of Europeans emigrated from Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. They escaped strife, war, famine, economic hardship and political persecution.

The Finns were no different from the Italians. They too emigrated en mass as the illustration below shows.

It is for that reason

Finland is a country of emigration. Before World War 2, the majority (about 370,000) emigrated to North America and after World War 2 (550,000) to Sweden. Source: Migration Institute.

While moving from the United States was a wise decision forty years ago, I have my doubts today about Europe being a safe haven. Are those same factors that forced Dante and millions of other Europeans to flee these shores arriving to haunt us once again? If not Europe or the United States, where could one flee to safety today?

The rise of fascism and populism in Europe during this century clearly shows that we have failed to do away with such ills, which .are still very much alive and kicking, waiting to resuscitate, like today.

Time will tell what happens. Even so, I am a bit apprehension about the future, and if we will end up again on those slippery slopes that led us to war.

I hope I am wrong.

Evey know and then I hear my great grandfather turning in his grave and stating sei pazzo!

Two of the most shameful medics of Europe: Jean-Paul Miera and Camille Locht

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The two French doctors, Jean-Paul Mira and Camille Locht said on television that Africans could be used as guinea pigs to find a COVID-19 vaccine. The suggestion by the two medics unleashed a storm of protests.

African footballers Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba and Demba Ba have some words they would like to share with these two medics.

Many of the problems that the EU faces, for example, its broken asylum policy, are symptomatic to our feelings of ethnic superiority and racism.