Even if the NGO Anti-Hate Crime Organisation (Suomen viharikosvastainen yhdistys ry) was founded on September 8 and registered on October 3 by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH), our association was spreading its first roots on February 23.
On that Friday in Vantaa at about 11:45 PM, three Finnish youths violently attacked a Pakistani migrant.
Migrant Tales wrote in March: “A group of youths and stabbed at least twenty times and repeatedly hit with ax causing, among other injuries, a fractured skull. The police are quiet until Tuesday when it puts out a statement, which does not mention that this may be a hate crime.”
If it were reported by the police as a hate crime, it would be one of the worst ever in Finland.
I met the victim, his wife, and two daughters, for the first time in March in the hospital. His state was terrible and weeks later it would take as long as four hours for the nurses to remove his stitches.
One of the wishes that the victim had, who is a member of our NGO’s board and our first honorary chairperson, is to tell people about hate crime. One matter that saddened him was that no NGO – except for one – had visited him when he was recovering in hospital.
One of the first matters we plan to do, among other matters like networking and forming alliances with different NGOs, is community empowerment like our honorary chairperson wishes. We will gladly oblige.
Since we believe that there is a lot of work to do in the area of hate crime, and, unfortunately, this will worsen in Finland, our answer to this challenge is Suomen viharikosvastainen yhdistys ry/Finska Anti-hartbrottsorganisation rf/Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland.
Apart from being Finland’s first hate-crime NGO, we call on everyone interested to join us and to challenge this social illness.
The journey is a long one but we are confident that we will prevail.
Police doesnt raise charges.