Finland saw probably for the first time an asylum reception center in Niinisalo, which was going to house asylum seekers next week, being razed to the ground by a suspected arson attack Tuesday. While such an attack should be condemned by everyone, there’s a Perussuomalaiset (PS) politician called Juha Maenpää who is rejoicing at what happened.
By condoning and rejoicing at such an act of violence politicians like Maenpää and his party are encouraging others to carry out similar acts of violence against migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and minorities in Finland.
The PS politician is also a member of the far right Suomen Sisu association in which PS MP Olli Immonen is chairman.
Mäenpää stated: “Great. There is a god. My prayers have been answered.”
Migrant Tales phoned the chairman and vice chairman, Ville Jussila and Janne Viianen, of the Vaasa PS office where Maenpää is a member but they would not answer my calls.
I was able to get in touch with Maenpää.
UPDATE: “Politicians should wake up to the situation,” he told Migrant Tales, “if they don’t it could spark a civil war.”
Maenpää added that he did not want his statement to incite violence against migrants and asylum seekers.
Why are these PS politicians so quiet? Why doesn’t at least Maenpää step up to the plate and take responsibility for his statements that condone violence.
Considering that the media and politicians like Prime Minister Juha Sipilä are willing to even call a crisis meeting because of an alleged rape that took place in Kempele, it’s incredible that nobody, never mind the PS leadership, is reacting to what Maenpää said.
Shame on them and shame on Finland.
Read original Facebook posting here.
As the present political climate is thick with xenophobia and hatred of everyone who isn’t white, it’s clear that Finland is suffering from many social ills like racism.
The first important matter that we have to acknowledge is that the hostility against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in this country is real and far worse than we want to admit. Politicians claim that such acts of violence and racism are a “far right thing.” Nonsense.
Waiting for the political and media establishments to hear our calls is utter naivety.
We have to challenge the present ogre roaming in Finland with all the democratic means at hand.
Juha Maenpää ran for praliament in the April elections and got enough votes to become a substitute MP.
* The Finnish name of the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English-language names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.