Is there a connection between what happened in July with Pekka Kataja and his attempted murder by the far right and the latest case involving at least one police officer and a group of far-right extremists to carry out a serious crime against the life or health of others? Expo, the Swedish anti-racism NGO, states…
Month: December 2020
A danger to democracy
If there is one matter that US President Donald Trump’s self-coup has evidenced, it is the fragility of our democracy. This is also the case in Finland with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, a pro-Trump radical right party that openly supports Trump. Some factors unite Finland with the United States. Finns have – incorrectly – said in…
Reija Härkönen: Milloin kunnialliset puolueet ryhtyvät toimeen?
Muukalaispelkoa ja siitä kehkeytynyttä vihaa lienee aina ollut ja tulee aina olemaan. Mutta milloin siitä tuli hyväksytty tapa tehdä politiikkaa? Milloin pakolaisesta tuli paholainen? 1990-luvulla vaihtaessani työpaikkaa esimieheni sihteeri kertoi, että uusilta työntekijöiltä kysytään heti, mitä mieltä he ovat pakolaisista. Arvaatte varmastikin, mitä mieltä olisi pitänyt olla. Minulle tuota kysymystä ei ollut esitetty ja olin…
Remember the Muslim youth violently attacked by a group of enraged townspeople of Teuva?
Remember Fares Al-Obaidi, 19, who was chased and violently attacked on Saturday, June 6, by a gang of angry residents of Teuva, a town in Western Finland? Six months have passed since that terrible incident, and no charges have been brought yet against the alleged attackers. “The fact that I know nothing about my case…
Are the police in a secret love affair with the Soldiers of Odin?
The Soldiers of Odin are a white supremacist vigilante group founded in the northern Finnish city of Kemi in 2015. The founder, Mika Ranta, a declared neo-Nazi. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a USAmerican anti-Semitism and anti-bigotry group founded in 1913, wrote about the Soldiers of Odin under the subtitle of “From Finland with Hate.” The…
Rosa Emilia Clay finally gets recognition when Tampere names a square after her
THIS POST WAS UPDATED Much of Finland’s history is whitewashed. One of its victims was Rosa Emilia Clay (1875-1959), Finland’s first African-born Finn who received Finnish citizenship in 1899. The naming of Rosa Emilia Clay square in Tampere is a watershed: Finland is slowly but surely awakening its rich cultural and ethnic background. Even if…
The way to stand up to racist bullying by politicians is to challenge them head-on
You would think that Finland, which claims to have one of the world’s best education systems, knows how to deal with racism and bullying. If we look at the last decade and the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, it appears that Finland has failed miserably in the task. The PS is today the second…
Kaikille valkoisille suomalaisille
Perussuomalaiset toivottivat 6.12. kaikille “suomalaisille” hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää. Noin kaksi vuottaa sitten, Johannes Sipola perussuomalaisista toivosi kaikille “valkoisille iseille” hyvää isänpäivää. Onko näissä kahdessa toivomuksissa eroa? Ei ole, koska ne ovat tarkoitettu valkoiselle suomalaisille, ei vähemmistölle, eli vaikkapa ruskeille suomalaisille. Heidän viestinsä on selvää: itsenäisyysjuhla kuuluu vain valkoisille suomalaisille. Jos kysyt perussuomalaisista, onko tämä rasistista, he…
A fake news website in Finland run by neo-Nazis
A neo-Nazi online publication called Partisaani is a good example of how far-right groups feed and fool readers. After close examination, the Partisaani publication’s layout has a striking similarity to Yle’s, the Finnish Broadcasting Company website. Even the typeset and layout of the stories are a copy of Yle. Check the two examples below. The…
Two Afghan asylum seekers in Finland kicked out of their flat while at school
The reception center of Mänttä-Vilpula is closing at the end of 2020. All asylum seekers at the reception center were told that they will be relocating/ transferring to reception centers in other cities. Some of the asylum seekers are currently studying at Mänttä school and are permitted to stay and continue their studies in the…