Read the full European Islamophobia Report 2019 here.
Month: June 2020
STATEMENT: European Islamophobia Report 2019
You can follow the panel and publishing of the European Islamophobia Report 2019 here.
European Islamophobia Report 2019 – Press Release
SETA will publish 2019 European Islamophobia Report on 20th June Saturday after the opening panel of the Report. Edited by Enes Bayrakl? and Farid Hafez European Islamophobia Report (EIR) published annually since 2015. The EIR 2019 includes a general assessment of Islamophobia in Europe in the year 2019 and 32 country reports that include almost all EU member states and additional countries such as Russia, Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Montenegro. The EIR 2019 brought together 32 scholars, experts, and civil society activists from various European countries who are specialized on racism and Islamophobia studies. They cover various issues from media, politics, and the justice system to the Internet, and offer concrete policy recommendations for civil society and politics. As our audience grows to include practitioners, scholars, and the general public, our website has acquired an audience from 165 countries, and the EIR and its findings have been cited frequently by international organizations, politicians, NGOs, scholars, and local and international media outlets.
In 2019, while the Islamophobic terror attack in Christchurch in New Zealand made the headlines, mosques have also been targeted in Germany, UK, France and Norway resulting to dozens of deaths and injured persons. Facing this rising threat, European states show an ambiguous stance. On the one hand, European governments work hard to track far-right terror groups and dismantle them. On the other, they participate in the normalization of Islamophobic discourses in Europe through discriminative declarations, bills and security policies targeting Muslim people. As the result of this normalization, not only far-right but also democrat and liberal majority governments started to put the life of Muslims into jeopardy and to undermine their fundamental rights.
In Austria for instance, the FPÖ submitted an amendment to change to School Teaching Act to include a hijab ban for pupils up to the age of 14 as well as for teachers; in Belgium, Halal slaughter ban was introduced; in Denmark, it became mandatory to shake public officials’ hands during citizenship ceremonies; in France, a bill to ensure so-called religious neutrality of persons contributing to the public service of education (i.e. banning headscarf in those services) was drafted by the Senate.
Besides the attempts of governments and political parties to implement legislations that directly target Muslims as religious subjects, mainstream media and private institutions are also responsible of spreading anti-Muslim feelings. In fact, one of the most striking examples of the normalization of Islamophobia in 2019 in Europe was the scandal around the Nobel Committee’s decision to award Peter Handke the Nobel Prize in Literature. During the Kosovo War, Handke expressed his wish to be “a Serbian-Orthodox monk fighting for Kosovo.” In 2006, Handke gave a eulogy at the funeral of Slobodan Miloševi?, the Serbian dictator responsible for the genocides against Albanians and Bosnians in the 1990s.
The European Islamophobia Report 2019 constitutes a precious source of knowledge for everybody – whether scholars or ordinary readers – interested in the development of racism and Islamophobia in Europe. Well-organized, complete and accessible, the EIR 2019 also represents a useful and valuable tool for any activist or policymaker who aims to tackle Islamophobia in a decisive manner. Indeed, all 32 country reports included in this book do not only analyse the Islamophobia phenomena but also explore pro-active solutions from the civil society.
We hope this compendium of useful insights and data will provide European policy-makers and institutions valuable tools to tackle anti-Muslim racism in Europe seriously.
The 2019 European Islamophobia Report and previous years reports can be downloaded from www.islamophobiaeurope.com
For further information contact:
Enrique Tessieri, European Islamophobia Report Finland chapter researcher
+358 40 8400773
* Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland was founded in September 2018 and registered as an NGO the following month. The aim of the NGO is to tackle and eradicate hate crime and all forms of discrimination in Finland such as anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, misogyny, and other forms of social exclusion through education and training, seminars, events, conferences, among others.
The most “notable” members of Finland’s Islamophobic network in 2019
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED
Who are the most “notable” figures of Finland’s Islamophobic network in 2019? In the list below, 13 are members of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, 3 are National Coalition Party (NCP) members, 2 are Christian Democrats (KD), and three others are political “freelancers:” Marco de Wit, Junnes Lokka, and Tiina Wiik.
The list, which is far from complete, was published in the European Islamophobic Report 2019, the most comprehensive report on anti-Muslim racism in Europe.
So who are they?
Jussi Halla-aho: an old-timer Islamophobe convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion. Halla-aho recently said that nobody would have no reason to masturbate if there were no news about migration and asylum seekers. He aims to end Muslim immigration to Finland. He has referred to Muslims as “the dregs of society.”
Riikka Purra: An Islamophobe who commonly blames all of the country’s problems on migrants and especially Muslims. Her political career relies strongly on Islamophobia. She commonly uses the term “harmful” immigration to describe Muslims and other people of color but doesn’t understand that she is a “harmful” MP to Finland’s growth and health.
Sebastian Tynkkynen: Convicted two times for ethnic agitation, he is usually the first one to cast the Islamophobic stone at Muslim victims. Tynkkynen was one PS politician who profited from the Oulu sexual assault cases and got a ticket to parliament.
Ville Tavio: One wonders if this politician is a lawyer or not when he talks about Muslims. One of the many things he has proposed is changing the Finnish Constitution so that Finns would have greater rights over foreigners. He has a hard time accepting that everyone, irrespective of one’s background, is equal before the law.
Laura Huhtasaari: The far-right Islamophobic rhetoric of this MEP appears to have supercharged in Brussels. Like Purra and other PS women politicians, she too sees Muslims under her bed and believes we will all be reading from the Koran soon. She commonly praises US President Donald Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Juha Mäenpää: It’s evident that this MP does not like Muslims. In 2015, he said God had answered his prayers when an asylum reception center was razed to the ground. In 2019, he got in trouble by comparing migrants to an “invasive species.” The PS politicians usually speak in code. Mäenpää meant asylum seekers and Muslims when he mentioned invasive species.
Ano Turtiainen: This politician has gained national and international notoriety for a tweet that mocked the death of George Floyd. Before the tweet, Turtiainen has published a lot of racist posts on social media.
Jari Ronkainen: Is a politician who loathes Muslims and multiculturalism. It’s no surprise that he, therefore, lobbies for tighter migration laws and faster deportations of migrants. A racist video that denigrates migrants in a video is only a part of his Islamophobic repertoire. He supported in 2018 an initiative to prohibit young girls from using veils.
Matias Turkkila: If there is a person in Finland who has facilitated and given Islamophobes a platform to voice their racism, that person is without a doubt Matias Turkkila. In a recent Tweet, he cried about Katie Hopkins’ permanent suspension from Twitter. Editor of the PS’ Suomen Uutiset and Halla-aho’s former campaign manager.
Sanna Antikainen: This MP’s Islamophobia from Outokumpu (population 6,803) resembles the town’s name, which means “strange hill.” Even if her hometown has hardly any foreigners, Antikainen is a fervent Islamophobe and supporter of US President Donald Trump. She is a trained nurse, but would she attend to Muslims or people of color if she were working at a hospital? One of her favorite lines is that Europe “isn’t the social welfare office of the world.”
Asseri Kinnunen: The PS Youth politicians is a member of the far-right and Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association. He likes to wear fascist shirts and ties of the Lapua Movement of the 1930s. Does Kinnunen house Islamophobic views? Guess.
Johannes Sipola: After the Christchurch massacre in March 2019, Sipola tweeted: “The New Zealand case show ever-convincingly that multicultural society does not work. When other people [of other backgrounds] rape and kill enough [people], it is only a question of time when there will be a reaction from the opposite side. First and foremost, everyone defends their own kind.”
Wille Rydman: For some in his party, Rydman is considered the Halla-aho of the National Coalition Party due to his Islamophobic and far-right views. He warned last year that the ethnic composition of Europe is changing due to low birth rates and that such ethnic diversity is harmful to the region.
Atte Kaleva: Selfies with Jussi Halla-aho and spreading Islamophobic soundbites is what Kaleva does in the belief they will get him elected to parliament. The good news is that such tactics haven’t worked. Like Rydman, Kaleva would be more at home in the PS. An Islamophobe populist opportunist.
Kai Mykkänen: The Oulu sexual assault cases in 2018-2019 that caused hysteria to spiral out of control in Finland, Mykkänen, who was then interior minister, lobbied for stricter laws, faster deportations, and even tests to asylum seekers to prove that they understood Finnish values. Mykkänen forgot to mention that Finnish men are also guilty of sexual assault and violence.
Sari Essayah: This conservative politician is a strong supporter of Israel’s settlement expansion in Palestine. Under her leadership, the Christian Democrats have moved politically closer to the PS’ and NCP’s on immigration and asylum issues. She has demonized Muslims and blamed sexual crimes on cultural factors. In one election compass, Essayah had “no opinion” whether it was the EU’s obligation to save asylum seekers from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Päivi Räsänen: This homophobic politician does not usually have kind things to say about Muslims from the Middle East unless they are Christians. As interior minister, she denied that ethnic profiling was carried out by the police even if studies proved the contrary. In January, she spread a rumor that a school in Helsinki had substituted Mohammed for Jesus Christ at a Christmas celebration party.
Marco de Witt: A loudmouth Islamophobe who desecrated the Quran in public last year. He was so obnoxious that he was kicked out of the Finland First (Suomen Kansa Ensin) political party and movement.
Junnes Lokka: A Moroccan-born Islamophobe who hates Muslims and asylum seekers. During the Oulu sexual assault cases last year, Lokka and Wiik were Katie Hopkins’ hosts in Oulu. Hopkins was recently banned permanently from Twitter because of her “hateful conduct.”
Tiina Wiik: She hosts with Lokka Vihapuhe FM or Hate Speech FM. During these transmissions, you will hear the views of Finland’s most questionable far-right politicians and Islamophobes. The couple organizes far-right events in Finland as well.
Weird Tweets from Finnish politicians: MEP Laura Huhtasaari’s praise of Trump
MEP Laura Huhtasaari is a white supremacist politician from Finland. Her tweets are schizophrenic: for English readers, she has one message and for her Finnish followers another.
What would people who can’t read Finnish think about her tweets in that language? In Finnish-language tweets, Huhtasaari commonly praises US President Donald Trump, and Hungary’s strongman, Viktor Orbán.
I doubt she would publish the tweet below in English.
“There is a strange habit in the world to hate people you don’t know. For example, Trump. What bad has he done except kept his campaign promises? Does hating make you a better person?”
Finnish fascism smells like the Perussuomalaiset with dashes of perkele [1] for taste
Some Finnish politicians have a love affair with fascism. One of these is Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Mauri Peltokangas. His campaign manager Jarno Vähäkainu recently showed his fondness for the Nazis in a tweet.
He states: “The Nazis did not accept collaboration from anyone, but they did from the Finns…It also says how unique people we are.”
There are a lot of PS politicians who are fascists or are closet fascists.
Peltokangas likes to blow hot air. In one recent 2:36-minute tirade, Peltokangas used the following swear words every 20 seconds:
- Shit (paska): 2 times
- Fucked (perseestä): 2 times
- What the hell, hell (mitä helevetti, helevetti): 2
- The devil (perkele): 2
A Peltokangas rant is like watching Benito Mussolini giving a fiery speech to his followers.
Below are Peltokangas and Mussoilini. Two peas in a pod.
[1] Perkele is a cuss word that means the devil in Finnish.
Two Islamophobes in a pod: Juha Mäenpää and Ano Turtiainen of Finland
MP Ano [1] Turtiainen’s tweet mocking the death of George Floyd sits together with Juha Mäenpää on Facebook. You may ask why?
Mäenpää is a member of the Perussuomalaiset party* and Turtiainen was expelled. One called Muslims “an invasive species” in parliament and the other mocked in a tweet George Floyd’s death.
Turtianen, like Mäenpää, are not only bound by chains in the Facebook picture below but by their racist posts and worldview.
Mäenpää thanked God in 2015 for the burning of an asylum reception center, and Turtiainen has a long list of racist posts on social media.
[1] ”Ano” is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. The translation of “ano” in Spanish is the anus.
The Mäenpää “invasive species” case is an example of how disenfranchised are Muslims and migrants in Finland
There is one matter that is clear about Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Juha Mäenpää: he hates Muslims so much that last year he compared them to an “an invasive species.” He is also close ideologically with Ano Turtiainen, who mocked George Floyd’s death.
According to the National Geographic, “An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area. Invasive species can cause great economic and environmental harm to the new area.”
Mäenpää, are Muslims and migrants organisms?
In the interview below with MTV, Mäenpää appears to regret the negative publicity but not what he said. He stated that in his “invasive species” speech in parliament he did not mean any ethnic or religious group.
“Immigration is one factor that affects the economy and taxes,” he said. “I plan to be critical about these matters but choose my words more carefully.”
For those who have followed how Islamophobic parties like the PS speak of Muslims and asylum seekers, will note that much of it is in code. Rarely do they use the term “Muslim” but do refer to asylum seekers, which is code for Muslims.
On Wednesday, the constitutional law committee voted 12-5 to lift MP Mäenpää’s immunity from prosecution.
Three of the committee’s PS members (Olli Immonen, Sakari Puisto, Jukka Mäkynen) and two of the National Coalition Party (Wille Rydman, Heikki Vestman) voted against the measure.
The fact that an MP can label Muslims and migrants as “invasive species” speaks volumes about how disenfranchised these groups are in Finland. For the Mäenpää affair to take a year shows how slowly justice works in this country.
One of the first to criticize the measure was PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho, who considered the constitutional law committee vote “shameful.” He said that the PS would vote against the measure in parliament.
To take away Mäenpää immunity, 167 our of 200 MPs would have to back the proposal. In theory, the PS could block the proposal with its 38 MPs.
What did other PS MPs comment about the committee vote?
MP Mauri “Perkele” Peltokangas, who appears close to exploding when giving monologue rants, slammed the decision as an example of the left-green and communist rot in parliament.
MP Sebastian Tynkkynen, who was convicted twice for ethnic agitation, wasn’t very imaginative. He stated that lifting Mäenpää’s immunity was another step in the degradation of free speech.
Taking down statues, raising new ones and systematic whitewashing in Finland
Slavery is the next thing to hell.
Harriet Tubman 1822-1913
Statues are being toppled left and right, some with permission others without. TV shows and movies like “Gone with the wind” are taken down because of their racist content. All of this indicates that we have reached some sort of tipping point.
Long live #BlackLivesMatters!
In all this protest against racism, Finland appears as an innocent observer of what is happening in the US and other parts of Europe. MP Ano Turtiainen, who got expelled from the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, can tell you how much it cost him to underestimate his racist tweet that mocked George Floyd’s death.
It was a hard blow from the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
The fact that an MP can post such racist trash as a member of Finland’s second-largest party is the clearest indication yet that the #BlackLivesMovement is long overdue in Finland.
But let’s not kid ourselves, #BlackLivesMatter reached Finland in early June.
A Helsingin Sanomat article on the impact of the #BlackLivesMovement claims that we should “learn from history.” It continues by stating that there may not be any need to take down statues of questionable leaders like Edward Colston, King Leopold II, Christopher Colombus, Confederate generals, Winston Churchill, and others as long as we study and learn from history.
Yes, but no. We can take down statues to reflect the values of today.
In Finland, too, we have learned very little or nothing about our culturally and ethnically diverse past. The reason why “we have not learned from our history” is that the whitewashing process is near-complete and systematic.
While some statues in Finland should end up in a museum or in a metal smelter, we need to raise new ones. One of these is of Rosa Emilia Clay. (1875-1959).
There are no statues never mind a humble street that carries her name anywhere in Finland.
Clay was a teacher and Finland’s first African who became a Finnish citizen in 1899. Her perseverance and her suffering as a black woman are proof of the challenges of our culturally and ethnically diverse society still faces.
In my opinion, Finland is such a racialized country and so obsessed with its whiteness that even white people from outside the EU, are othered.
Due to my Jewish background, which I was supposed to forsake due to whitewashing, I was fortunate to rediscover who my distant relatives were and why I was supposed to forget them.
Understanding that we are part of a hostile whitewashing process waged at us should bring guys closer to Emma Tubman’s words, “And I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.”
The #BlackLivesMatter movement is growing and getting stronger in Finland as well. It gives us courage, makes us stronger, and abler to fight.
Migrant Tales little emagazine
Finnish MP who mocked George Floyd: You are not suspected of ethnic agitation, you are suspected of ethnic agitation
The news continues to roll in for MP Ano Turtiainen, who was suspended from the Perusuomalaiset (PS)* parliamentary group for a tweet that mocked George Floyd’s death.
After the police carried out their investigation last week and decided not to charge Turtiainen for ethnic agitation or defamation, the police changed course Monday after Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen got involved.
Toiviainen said that there is a strong suspicion that Turtiainen may be guilty after all of ethnic agitation.
There are a lot of questions that Turtiainen’s case brings forth. One of them is how interested are the police in going after people who spread hate speech and racism? The police did not initially suspect Turtiainen’s tweet of ethnic agitation or of defamation since Goerge Floyd was dead.
The tweet is not only a slap in the face of George Floyd and to all the suffering black people are experiencing, but it is also a swipe at Finland black community.
Turtiainen’s “joke?” George Floyd’s wide-eyed face full of terror colored purple with the name of the 1960s rock band “Pink Floyd.”