According to Yaron Nadbornik, president of the 1,100-strong Jewish Community of Helsinki, the Finnish authorities acknowledge that there is anti-Semitism and it is a problem.
“The authorities have recognized during 2018-2019 that there is an anti-Semitism problem in Finland,” he said. “Before it was [for them] pretty unclear if such a matter existed.”
According to Nadbornik, the shift in attitude happened due to the activities of neo-Nazi and far-right groups in Finland.
The head of the Jewish Community of Helsinki said that hate speech continues to be the fertile ground for anti-Semitism and racism in Finland.
“More efforts [by the authorities] should be taken to address hate speech,” he continued, “because it is from there where terrible things happen.”
Nadbornik complained in an interview in 2017 that the government of Prime Minsiter Juha Sipilä was not doing enough to clamp down on online hate speech.
“Anti-Semitism has become more systematic and organized [since 2017],” he said, adding the groups use different online platforms to spread their hatred.
Nadbornik agreed that politicians should show more leadership against hate speech and social ills like anti-Semitism and racism.
“Politicians do speak out against hate speech but a lot more could be done,” he said. “President [Sauli] Niinistö’s speech denouncing anti-Semitism [and condemning neo-Nazi groups] was important because it reaffirmed that there is a problem [in Finland and steps must be taken to eradicate it].”
President Niinistö’s condemnation came after the Turku Synagogue was the target of vandals on Holocaust Remembrance Day in January.
Nadbornik said that the Synagogue of Helsinki was also vandalized several times in winter with paint and stickers.
“The coronavirus [pandemic] has fueled racism against the Chinese and Jews in Central Europe and the United States,” he concluded. “We haven’t seen this problem in Finland, and I hope I never will.”
If you had the opportunity ever to know Ali, one of the first things you’d know is his arduous journey from Finland to Iraq and hopefully back. During the roughly three years lived in Finland, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to tell him that he isn’t wanted here.
This is his situation today: Ali left voluntarily in June 2018 to Iraq, got married to his sweetheartin Turkey in October of the same year, and applied for a visa to Finland on the grounds that he is married to a Finnish citizen.
After a long wait, their chance to live together in Finland was dashed last autumn by Migri, which claimed that their marriage is fake.
Both have appealed the decision to the administrative court.
“Sometimes I lose hope and it is really a stressful feeling,” said Ali’s wife. “I hope things will work out. We will find a way.”
Apart from doing everything legally, the couple sent a letter to Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo asking her to intervene in their case.
“I haven’t got any reply from her office,” said Ali’s wife. “Not even confirmation that they received our letter.”
There is always a question that arises from Ali: “How long before I can be by my beloved wife’s side?”
If there is one matter that characterizes Migri in Ali’s and his wife’s case it is the sheer cruelty and arbitrariness of how Migri treats asylum seekers from the Middle East, Ali’s case is one from a long list of other Middle Easterners married to a Finn.
Just like Finland’s inhumane family reunification policy, the human right to establish a family in Finland is denied by a country that claims to value social equality and justice.
In my book that is called hypocrisy.
A message* from Ali (12.4.2020):
Hi Enrique,
How are you, it’s been a long time since we chatted. I hope you are feeling well. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m not having good days as I once did a long time ago. I don’t know what to do, but I remember you. You’ve always lent a friendly ear, and thank you for helping us in our ordeal. There are many thoughts, some that appear when I’m working or when I’m resting. Matters become worse before I go to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, an image appears of a picture (see below) I took in a police cell I was detained.
This picture was taken by Ali while in detention in a police cell in Mikkeli.
My heart starts to beat faster when I remember the unfair treatment I received in Finland by the police. It generates a lot of anxiety and sadness. I sometimes watch movies before going to sleep to forget. But I cannot sleep as so many things are swimming around in my mind, like the nightmares, the nightmares I see every night. One of these is of the police running after me. I try to run, but there is nothing I can do. I cannot escape. The nightmares are so intense that I can’t stop them from appearing. I tried many times by not thinking of what happened. I tried everything even with the help of video calls with my wife every day and every night. But it’s to no avail. The nightmares appear. I wish I could do more and be stronger, but it’s so hard. I’m sorry for sharing this with you.
Tässä mielipidekirjoitus, joka julkaistiin maaliskuussa Karjalaisissa. Tarjoisin kirjoitusta ensiksi Helsingin Sanomiin, mutta tuli seuraava vastaus: “Kiitos kirjoituksesta. Runsaan tarjonnan takia meillä ei ole mahdollisuutta julkaista sitä.” Karjalaisissa poistettiin muutamia kohtia kirjoituksesta. Tässä alkuperäinen kirjoitus.
Yksi lehdistön tärkein tehtävä on olla yhteiskunnan vahtikoira ja valvoa kaikkien oikeuksia. Kuinka hyvin Suomen lehdistö valvoo vähemmistöjen, kuten muslimien, oikeuksia?
Osa ihmisistä ja vähemmistöistä eivät tiedä kuinka tärkeä rooli ja vastuu lehdistöllä on demokraattisessa yhteiskunnassa. Lehdistön vapaus kuuluu sananvapauteen ja on lakisääteinen. Jos viimeiset tutkimukset puhuvat totta, Suomessa esiintyy liian paljon syrjintää työmarkkinoilla ja poliittinen maahanmuuttovastaisuutta leimaava retoriikka rehottaa.
Keväällä julkaistaan uusin eurooppalaisesta muslimeihin kohdistuva rasismi ja syrjintä kertova raportti (European Islamophobia Report). Suomen osiossa kuvataan kuinka eritysesti Oulun seksuaalirikosten uutisointi sekä myöhemmin al-Holin naisten ja lasten kotiuttaminen vaikuttivat muslimiyhteisöön.
Ilta-Sanomat kirjoitti vuonna 2015 “laitonta” pakolaisista.
Kuten Oulun kirjoitukset osoittivat, poliitikot (erityisesti perussuomalaiset ja myös hallituspuolueesta mm. kokoomus), innostuivat leimaamaan koko muslimiyhteisön. Huhtikuun eduskuntavaalit oli yksi tärkeä moottori, joka innoitti poliitikot tähän ja lehdistö tarjosi hyvän alustan levittää tätä sanoma.
Mielestäni yksi tärkein lehdistön ominaisuus on olla reilu. Sanat ovat, kun luoteja. Tykillä ei kannata kärpästä ampua.
Suomalaisen lehdistön reaktio ei yllätä. Eräs brittitutkimus (Muslim Council of Britain) paljasti, että keskimäärin 59% kirjoituksista olivat puolueellisia ja negatiivisia muslimeille.
Suomesta löytyy paljon esimerkkejä negatiivisista ja jopa rasistisista jutuista 1990-luvulta, kun iltapäivälehdet kirjoittivat somalipakolaisten tulosta Suomeen. Tässä muutamia lööppejä Ilta-Sanomista: ”Somalit saaneet huijaten turvapaikkoja” (27.4.1994), ”Somalit jäävät Suomeen” (7.8.1996), ”Miksi venäläiset ärsyttävät suomalaisia?” (1.8.1995). Vuonna 2015 sama meno näytti jatkuvan: ”IS paljastaa: Tänä vuonna Suomeen 10 000 laitonta pakolaista.
Pakolaiset eivät voi olla ”laittomia”, koska he ovat maahan tullessaan hakeneet turvapaikkaa, mikä on yksi ihmisoikeuksista.
Mediatutkija Anu Koivunen kirjoitti Suomen Kuvalehdessä (25.01.2019) kuinka lehdistö käsitteli Oulun tapahtumia.
”Myös Yle osallistui paniikkiin julkaisemalla viikon aikana yli 50 verkkojuttua Oulun seksuaalirikosepäilystä ja seksuaalirikoksista,” hän kirjoitti. ”Lisäksi aihe oli esillä Ylen ajankohtaisohjelmissa: A-Talkissa, Ykkösaamussa, A-Studiossa, Aamu-tv:ssä, Politiikkaradiossa ja Sannikka & Ukkola -ohjelmassa.”
Koivunen ei sitä kerro kolumnissaan, mutta veikkaan, että hyvin vähän, jos ollenkaan, muslimitaustaisia asiantuntijoita käytettiin lähteenä kirjoituksissa.
Al-Holin suomalaisten naisten ja heidän lastensa kotiuttamisessa näkyi samaa ”paniikki”: Yle julkaisi ajalla 2.-21.2019 yhteensä 71 kirjoitusta, kun samaan aikaan Helsingin Sanomat julkaisi 36.
Toki lehdistöllä on velvollisuus kirjoittaa aiheista, jotka vaikuttavat yhteiskuntaan ja kiinnostavat tai huolestuttavat suomalaisia ja vähemmistöjä.
Mikäli Suomi ja sen lehdistö haluaa kasvattaa uskottavuutta eri etnisten ryhmien kanssa, yksi positiivinen askel olisi kouluttaa ja työllistää lisää vähemmistöjen edustajia toimittajiksi.
Olen varma, että uutistoimituksesta löytyy hyvin vähän vähemmistöjen edustajia. Jos Helsingissä asuu n. 16% vieraskielisiä, niin kuinka monta tästä ryhmästä on edustettuna Suomen suurimmassa lehdessä?
Lehdistöllä on tärkeä rooli siinä, millaista yhteiskuntaa rakennamme tänään ja tulevaisuudessa: onko se reilu vai puolueellinen vähemmistöjä kohtaan?
Enrique Tessieri valtioteiden maisteri, vapaa kolumnisti, Migrant Tales-blogin perustaja, European Network Against Racism (ENAR) hallituksen jäsen (2016-2019) ja European Islamophobia Report Suomen osion kirjoittaja.
As xenophobic parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party blame visible minorities for growing coronavirus infections, the same is being spread by people by people who should know better.
The rise of a racist party like the PS during the 2010s, which reinforced many Finns’ xenophobic views, suggests that labeling and racializing will continue to pick up as do deaths caused by the coronavirus.
While exceptionalism and many other blindspots may keep us from seeing inequality in our health care system in Finland and other EU countries, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) is spot on by stating, the #inequality doesn’t just make pandemics like #Covid_19 worse – it could cause them.
Despite such good insight by ENAR, PS MPs like Veikko Valin offer their own mumbo jumbo explanation as to why COVID-19 infections are higher among the Somali-speaking community.
He tweets: “Somali-speakers in Helsinki have nine times higher infections than white Finns. They claim it is because they have a poor command of the Finnish language. I suspect it has to do with eating with their fingers, having large families, bending over at mosques, and hanging out all day at shopping malls. Or it could be Trump’s fault.”
Disgraceful and racist. Ladies and gentlemen, an MP of the PS.
One of the matters that the coronavirus has exposed as well. is how populist anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* assail migrants and minorities, especially Muslims.
Helsinki Mayor Jan Vapaavuori was quoted as saying in statementthat he is concerned by the rapid rise of coronavirus infections among the Somali speaking community.
“Close to 200 cases have been identified to date, which translates to 1.8 percent of the Somali community in the capital, compared with the 0.2 percent average among all of Helsinki’s residents,” the statement said. “In light of this recent worrying trend, the City of Helsinki and HUS hospitals have stepped up their efforts to prevent further contagion.”
While Migrant Tales alerted its readers about how minorities could be more susceptible to infection, the PS has criticized state-owned broadcaster Yle for offering information about coronavirus in the Somali, Kurdish, Farsi and Arabic languages.
One PS official that was highly critical of the broadcasts was party secretary Simo Grönroos. “On morning TV they suggested that broadcasts in [these people’s] mother tongue should be expanded. This is not the way to go. If they want to hear the news in Arabic they should move to an Arabic-speaking country.”
It was last summer that PS MP Ano Turtiainen thanked the ebola virus for doing its part in keeping population growth in Africa.
Back then, he had no idea that the white people like him in Europe would be the victims of a deadly killer called coronavirus.
While exceptionalism and many other blindspots may keep us from seeing inequality in our health care system in Finland and other EU countries, the European Network Against Racism is spot on by stating, the #inequality doesn’t just make pandemics like #Covid_19 worse – it could cause them.
Look out also for a racist blame game against minorities for higher coronavirus infections.
Social inequality is the culprit, not the minorities’ fault because his or her illtreatment, microaggressions, and social exclusion may have undermined his language and social skills.
After MTV broke a story about coronavirus infections at the Luona-managed Nihtisilta reception center in Espoo, Migrant Tales got confirmation Wednesday from the company that there are two infected asylum seekers with coronavirus.
We had reported Tuesday, citing a source at the reception center, that the possible number of infected asylum seekers could number 7-10.
Migrant Tales got in touch with Luona’s Business Director Suvi Salonen, who did not return our call or answer our email concerning the number of infected asylum seekers.
Some measures taken by the asylum reception center is that none of the residents eat together in the cafeteria. Contrary to the infected residents, whose food is brought to them, each person gets his food from the cafeteria and eats it in his room.
The Nihtisilta reception center is bursting with trash.
A Migrant Talesstory last week asked why the government has been issuing social distancing recommendations to avoid crowded environments, but these guidelines did not apply to reception centers. Why hadn’t they taken steps to make such camps less crowded?
Ahti Tolvanen wrote: “The problem has been noticed and measures taken in other countries but not in Finland. In Greece, two refugee reception centers were recently placed under special quarantine restrictions…Portugal has taken a more proactive measure by issuing temporary resident permits to all asylum seekers until the summer to allow them to try and find safe work and accommodations and to escape high-risk institutionalization.”
MTV published today the dire situation of refugees at the Luona-managed Nihtisilta reception center in Espoo. An anonymous Iraqi asylum seeker said there is no soap to wash there hands, and there is a lot of concern about coronavirus spreading.
Migrant Tales got in touch with an asylum reception center resident in Espoo who confirmed the concern and dire situation of some asylum seekers.
“We are Iraqi, Afghans, and Somali refugees [at the Nihtisilta asylum reception center] and have been living there for five years,” said a refugee. “There is not enough hygiene care [by Luona] since we cannot afford to buy sanitizers.”
The asylum seeker said that all the money they receive monthly is 90 euros. The reception center does not provide any soap, detergents, or towels.
On each floor of the reception center, there are two bathrooms, which houses about 100 people.
“On the third floor [of the reception center] there is coronavirus infected asylum seekers,” he continued. “They [asylum reception staff] don’t give us any information about those that were [allegedly] infected.”
The asylum seeker said that he and others are especially concerned about the situation.
“There are no staffers, management, social worker, a nurse at the reception center,” he concluded. “Only security guards and kitchen workers.”
A bit of history
News about the Nihtisilta reception center was published in Suomen Kuvalehti and Migrant Tales about the death of an Afghan asylum seeker, Jayyed Abbas Jaffari (1995-2016).
Luona denied that there was any negligence or inadequate treatment on their behalf surrounding Jaffari’s death.
In January 2016, there were a lot of stories coming out of reception centers that pointed to the ill and deficient treatment especially by Luona, a private company, of asylum seekers.
Here’s what Migrant Tales has heard after Jaffari’s death:
Employees at Luona have resigned due to the poor and humiliating treatment of asylum seekers as well as to the deficient medical attention they receive by the company;
Luona’s employees are informed not to call an ambulance without prior permission of the manager, who is difficult to reach and does not answer the phone;
One of the reasons why some patients, probably Jaffari, didn’t get to the hospital on time was because they had to get permission from the manager, who is speculated to be sleeping on Sunday morning and/or had his mobile phone switched off;
Jaffari visited the nurse at the Espoo reception center for three consecutive days. He was told to take Paracetamol and drink hot tea;
The manager who was on duty did not appear at work for two weeks after Jaffari’s death;
Many other medical treatment issues of asylum seekers are reported daily at Luona’s reception centers;
Employees and asylum seekers have complained to FIS about the situation;
FIS and the police have brought up Jaffari’s death and are said to be carrying out some sort of investigation to clear up the matter;
The Finnish parliament sent a questionnaire to Luona inquiring about how it runs its reception centers.
During 2016, Migrant Tales published score of stories about the poor treatment of asylum seekers at some Finnish asylum reception centers.
Stories published by Migrant Tales’s “Supermen”* on asylum reception centers during 2016.
* “The Supermen” are a group of concerned citizens who helped to expose the abuses and racism at some of Finland’s reception centers. Some of them want to be anonymous because it would impede their priceless work in exposing future injustices and abuses of asylum seekers, migrants, and minorities.
We have all heard the case for increased testing for coronavirus (COVID-19). But we need other tests like those that will judge our politicians and how they handle COVID-19.
An article in the Washington Postinterviewed a black man in Louisiana who said that “wearing a facemask won’t protect us from our history [of slavery and Jim Crow].”
In the United States alone, coronavirus strikes and kills blacks, Latinos and other minorities disproportionately.
Apart from exposing our wasteful investments on defense and weapons spending, which give us a false sense of security, the pandemic exposes in our faces as well the chronic social inequalities of our societies.
Not only are the most vulnerable groups suffering in the United States but minorities in the UK and other countries of the world.
There is mounting evidence – and it should not surprise us – that blacks, Asians and other minority communities in the UK are hit the hardest. According to the BBC, over a third of the patients critically ill in hospitals are minorities.
It would not surprise me either in Europe that members of the Romany minority and Muslims may experience much higher infection and death rates than white Europeans.
The fact that we still do not have any official statistics on the latter is quite revealing. Such information is also important because minority communities must take steps to protect themselves from the deadly virus.
When will COVID-19 end?
I believe that the pandemic will end when we put on the defensive and tackle effectively social inequality, boundless greed, environmental destruction, laissez-faire globalization and capitalism, populists that worship dictators, and the billionaires that are screwing things up big time.
In an interview in Córdoba three years ago, Finnish screenwriter Aki Kaurismäki said: “We must exterminate the rich and the politicians who lick their asses.”
While the rich indirectly kill people through their wealth accumulation, “extermination” may mean forcing rich people to pay much higher taxes and severely cut off their money machines, which are the capital markets.
Such wealth should not end up in their greedy pockets of the 1% but used for creating global well-being and improving the lives of everyone on this planet.
In light of the early warning signs and red lights flashing concerning the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), there is a moral to the pandemic that is wreaking havoc: military spending, investment in weapon technology, and building walls will not keep you secure.
How does the quote below tweeted by Natalia del Cid sound like?
“So much investment in weapons due to the threat of war and a virus is screwing us because we did not invest in science, health care, and education.”
Imagine, for a moment, that instead of spending vast sums of money on what US President Dwight Eisenhower called the industrial-military complex, we’d spend it on global well-being?
Like so many others before and after him, Eisenhower sounded the alarm: “So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
We should also tell the profiteers and fat-cat billionaire capitalists at the service of war that the only land they can rightfully claim as their own is the soil that covers their coffin.
Coronavirus is a new calling for humanity, a second chance, possibly.
Separation or divorce from a partner can be an especially trying matter in Finland if you are a foreigner and a man. We have learned of a new case that was brought to our attention.
This is how it usually how events pan out: A foreigner gets married to a Finnish woman, they have a child and then divorce. The man does not get a residence permit. He is forced to leave the country or get deported.
Below is a decision in 2018 by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to reject Abul’s* residence permit on family grounds.
Ardian* is a 24-year-old Albanian who moved to Finland a bit over three years ago. He came to Finland to find work. He met a Russian woman, got married, had a child, and separated.
“I have been waiting for three years to get my residence permit,” he said. “Even if I have a child in Finland, Migri, has turned down my requests.”
He said that he is appealing Migri’s decision in court and expects a decision soon, probably in April.
Ardian,* who lives in Vantaa, said that he has always worked (today in construction) in Finland, paid taxes and never asked for a cent of social welfare.
He said that he even moved to a construction site in Kittlä in Lapland and works today on top of a 39-meter tower. He said that if he refused to work in such high places, his boss would fire him.
Ardian claims that foreign construction workers do work that Finns would not normally do.
Since he does not have a residence permit, he can work legally but does not have any rights from Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland), even if given sick leave.
“I once fractured two fingers at work and the doctor gave me two-month sick leave,” he said. “I had to return back to work and could not stay at home because I wasn’t making any money. Kela refused to pay me any support.”
Apart from working with few rights, his daughter is one of the main reasons he wants to remain in Finland.
“It’s so unjust! If I could, I’d ask the Finnish authorities why I am being treated in this way,” Ardian continued. “I have a daughter, which I love very much but am not allowed to see. Don’t I have a right to stay in this country?”
Ardian cited “differences in lifestyle” for his divorce with his wife.
“My ex-wife wanted us to live off Kela but I refused to,” he said without providing any further explanation.
Ardian said that returning to Albania was not an option for him.
“That whole country is so corrupt and there is a lot of crime there,” he concluded. “I cannot also go back because my daughter is here. She loves me very much.”
* The name of the person was changed to protect his identity.
