For years now the day has seen gatherings and rallies in support of immigrant and refugee rights and counterdemonstrations by nationalists who stand for ethnic purity.
At times the police have seized Nazi flags from the arch-nationalists or blocked violent attacks by some of these people against antifascists and antiracists.
Some claim that the police took sides with the neo-Nazi 612 demontrators. on December 6. Photo: Ahti Tolvanen.
This year for the first time, the police left the nationalist extremists and Nazis to go about their grim business and drove the anti-Nazi antiracist larger group off the streets -or tried to. One might say the Helsinki constabulary seemed to be bent on turning Independence Day 2023 into a festival for bigots.
The undersigned was at Töölöntori around 17.30 where “Helsinki Ilman Natseja” (Helsinki Without Nazis) group had convened a demonstration beginning at 4 pm. Another demonstration by known nationalist extremists had been called for at 6 pm in the name of “612”.
When I arrived there was a group of over 1,000 people shouting “Nazis out of Helsinki!” on the Runeberginkatu street side of Töölöntori square. They were slowly being pushed away from Töölöntori to the other side of the street by a row of hundreds of policemen with helmets and riot gear. Behind them, a small crowd seemed to be forming on Töölöntori- presumably by the 612 people.
Suddenly, a group of about a dozen mounted policemen appeared out of the dark from the direction of Töölöntori and rode into the demonstrators on Runeberginkatu and forced many to flee up the street to the north or to the opposite way down Topeliuksenkatu street. The demonstrators kept shouting “No Nazis in Helsinki” and waving anti-racist signs as the police edged them across the street. The crowd was mainly made up of young people but included families with young children as well as senior citizens.
The mounted police regrouped and began to drive the main group of protesting demonstrators down Topeliuksenkatu. Many people were caught in a small sidewalk area below the rock wall and the mounted police took the opportunity to spur their horses and ride into them. One officer shouted orders to people to move further down the street past a bus stop in the distance.
A woman in apparent panic ran the wrong way back towards the square and was pulled down by two officers and held down on the ground. She was eventually taken away to a waiting vehicle. There were about 45 other people apprehended who had failed to get out of the way in time or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There were curses shouted at the police but, despite the brusqueness of the police, -surprisingly- there was no real fighting back aggressively. I was nudged along by a policeman’s horse for not moving fast enough. I stopped to pat the horse on the nose. That turned into a rather affectionate moment, actually, and we parted amicably.
Before parting I managed to ask the policewoman on the horse if they were going to drive off any nasty Nazis later. She replied something like “one job at a time”.
Over 60 people were taken away in buses and paddy wagons who were mainly demonstrators from the “Helsinki Without Nazis” rally, to be questioned and held overnight in police custody.
The police later explained that they broke up the larger anti-Nazi rally this year because the “612” extremists had a prior booking for their event at the same location, on Töököntori. Suggestions to hold the anti-Nazi rally prior to the 612 event fell on deaf police ears. Negotiations to relocate elsewhere were inconclusive.
Anyone who was on the spot could probably see a way matters could have been done differently. The Töölöntori area is large enough so that it could have been divided in two by a police cordon and barriers and it seems likely both demonstrations could have gone ahead there.
The police said their intention was mainly to prevent clashes between the two demonstrations. The 612 demonstration which this year also attracted the “Soldiers of Odin”- famous for intimidating refugees- has in past years been marred by arrests of participants threatening violence or carrying weapons. The weapons seized on the night at the railway station near another national extremist rally were also in the posession of such extremists.
It seems that to protect the anti-facists this year from aggressive persons like the latter group, the police ended up denying all anti-fascists and their anti-racist allies in Helsinki the right to demonstrate and have a public voice. In the summer, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo announced that his government and Finland would in the future have zero tolerance of racism, anti-semitism and intolerance. Citizens were encouraged to speak out against these ills.
Denying the right to demonstrate to the people who agree with Mr. Orpo’s zero tolerance policy for bigotry, and having them chased off the streets by mounted policemen on Independence Day, seems to send out exactly the opposite message.