Author: Migrant Tales
Finns have finally woken up to a lie and bully called the Perussuomalaiset party
After bullying, labeling and scapegoating migrants and minorities for a number of years, the Perussuomalaiset party (PS)* appears to be returning to the minor one-digit political leagues, if a recent poll by Helsingin Sanomat is true. Those groups that the PS has attacked and spread lies about will have the last laugh.
While there is still a long way to go before the parliamentary elections of 2019, the municipal elections are just around the corner on April 9.
A poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat shows the Perussuomalaiset in the minor one-digit political leagues with 8.6% Source: Helsingin Sanomat.
Some analysts believe that if the PS does poorly in the municipal elections, which would mean below 10% of the votes, it may prompt the party to exit government. Depending which party replaces the PS or if new elections are called, it could even mean an about-turn in immigration policy.
Continue reading “Finns have finally woken up to a lie and bully called the Perussuomalaiset party”
Ahmad Liath: “I left Iraq because I long for freedom”
Ahmad Liath was twelve years old when he left Iraq in 2005. Two years before that year, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and in 2004 his father was killed.
After the invasion by the United States and its allies, thing didn’t get better but worse in Iraq. A testimony of the latter is the violence and death that we commonly read in the news from Iraq today.
Like thousands of other Iraqi asylum seekers, Liath, who lives in the city of Tampere, located 178 km north of Helsinki, came to Finland in the fall of 2015. Like many of his fellow countrymen, he too got a rejection for asylum from the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) in January. His mother, however, who came with him to Finland, got a positive decision from Migri ten days before his rejection.
Eleven years is a long time for anyone to be on the road. Liath first moved from Iraq to Syria in 2005 and stayed there until 2010, when fighting in that country’s civil war got worse. He moved to Turkey and then in 2015 to Europe.
“Even if I have lived most of my life in Syria and Turkey, I still don’t know what having a home means,” he continued. “I’ve been called a lot of names during my travels like asylum seeker, tramp, bum, hobo, and wanderer. I’ve taken a lot of insults, suffered racist attacks and seen my human rights trampled,”
Liath said that one of the matters he learned after being on the road for such a long time is that you learn to mistrust everyone, especially your countrymen.
“In Austria I got a negative decision for asylum because the interpreter, who was an Iraqi, told the immigration authorities that I wasn’t a real asylum seeker,” he said.
Liath says that despite his fears and mistrust of people, he’s able to stay focused on his long journey. “I left Iraq because I long for freedom,” he said.
Liath stated that if he can settle down in Finland he’d like to study a profession like computer science and work for a company.
“It’s been difficult to go to school for me since we’ve been near-constantly on the move and I’ve been obliged to work in order to help my mother and sister,” he added.
Before coming to Finland, the young Iraqi asylum seeker moved to Germany, where he stayed at an asylum refugee center in Karlsruhe, after being in Austria and Hungary. He too took the so-called “road of death” that hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers took in 2015 through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary.
“The worst place that I visited was Hungary and in Serbia they treated us like animals,” he said. “I was locked up [in Hungary] for a month for crossing the border.”
Around 1,300 people lived in an asylum center in Karlsruhe, Germany. “Imagine what the WC looks like or when you have wait in long lines for food or get you phone charged,” he said. Picture by Ahmad Liath.
The food served at the asylum center in Karlsruhe in Germany. Picture by Ahmad Liath.
“We were 12 people in a tiny cell that was only 15 square meters,” he said. “We had to take 4-5-hour shifts sleeping because all of us couldn’t lie down on the floor at the same time. We were locked up for 22 hours and allowed to go outside for only two hours a day.”
Continue reading “Ahmad Liath: “I left Iraq because I long for freedom””
President Niinstö and Prime Minister Juha Sipilä believe that dual nationals pose threat to Finland’s national security
The debate on dual citizenship in Finland became headline news again on Thursday when President Sauli Niinistö was quoted as saying on YLE News that dual nationals could pose a security threat to the country. On Friday, YLE published a poll where 66% of the respondents agreed that dual nationals shouldn’t be hired to work for the defense forces and foreign ministry.
One of the interesting questions we should ask is why has dual citizenship become such a burning national issue at this moment?
Source: YLE News.
Apart from this week’s scoop by YLE, which revealed that the defense forces places restrictions on conscripts who are dual citizens of Finland and Russia, it appears to be as well one of President Niinistö’s favorite topics. In 2014, he started to gather information about dual citizens.
According to Thursday’s Helsingin Sanomat, a person with Finnish and Russian citizenship was also turned down a job in the foreign ministry because he was a dual national.
Another reason why dual citizenship has hit the headlines in Finland again is because municipal elections will take place on April 9. This may be a good way for government parties like the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset*, which have seen their poll numbers plummet, and its partners, the Center Party and National Coalition Party (NCP), to bolster support in the upcoming elections.
Another politician that was in favor of placing restrictions on dual nationals from getting jobs at the foreign ministry and defense forces is Prime Minister Juha Sipilä of the Center Party.
Before being elected as head of state, Niinistö was an NCP member.
Plans to discriminate against dual nationals in Finland may have also a lot to do with the present negative immigration and anti-cultural diversity climate in Finland, which has put pressure on political parties to scale back and water down laws that stand up for human rights and diversity.
Source: YLE News.
After Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995, it passed a number of liberal laws that fostered respect for diversity and human rights.
One of these new laws was the Constitution, which replaced in 1999 the former one that was in force since 1919. Section 6 of the present Constitution states:
“No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.”
Matti Jutila of the Finnish League for Human Rights believes that it will be difficult to draft a law that sees dual citizenship as an “acceptable reason” to exclude people from being hired at the foreign ministry or defense forces.
Hayder Al-Hatemi is freed from detention and becomes a momentary bright spot in the gloom that asylum seekers face in Finland
Some stories that Migrant Tales has published about asylum seekers in Finland have had tragic endings. On Wednesday, however, there was a bright spot that cut through some of the gloom: Hayder Al-Hatemi, alias “SH,”* was released from detention from Helsinki’s Metsälä immigration removal center.
Today was his first full day as a free man.
“It really feels great to be free,” he said by phone. “I met Miro [del Gaudio] and we went to Migri [Finnish Immigration Service] to renew my work permit.”
Al-Hatemi said that being locked up at an immigration removal center like Metsälä is something he had never experienced in his life before.
“You are locked up with other people who may have criminal records and be drug dealers,” he continued. “What is my crime? Is it because my application for asylum was rejected? I’m not a criminal.”
Al-Hatemi said that his employer at a bakery in Laitila has promised to help him enroll in school so he could learn a new profession and become a baker. “This is such a nice feeling and so many people have helped me and made my freedom a reality,” he said.
Celebrating Hayder Al-Hatemi release Wednesday in Helsinki. From left to right: Eero Pellikka, Al-Hatemi, and Miro del Gaudio.
Al-Hatemi’s legal representatives, Lex Gaudius, have been instrumental in helping the Iraqi asylum seeker.
Lex Gaudius authorized lawyer Eero Pellikka was happy as well about his release.
Iraqi asylum seeker SH was released today after being detained since January 6
SH, the Iraqi asylum seeker who was detained by the police on Janaury 6, was released today from Helsinki’s Metsälä immigration removal center. SH was detained on the same day together with KM, who was released from detention on January 12.
“I’m really happy and now I must renew my work permit,” he told Migrant Tales this afternoon.
Read the full story here.
SH said he will return to Laitila where he was working at a bakery.
Facebook: Don’t let the Finnish government and Migri get you down, says Kerstin Ösgård
Kerstin Ösård
Everybody here, my friends in the Iraqi community, feel so down these days about this country’s crazy asylum policy and Migri’s stupidity. I just want all you to know that we are many Finnish people who work very hard to change the situation because we simply cannot accept how our country treats you.
We could today have 30,000 happy former refugees here, who would now work, study, feel safe, hope for the future, and who would be part of our country and contribute as tax-payers thanks to innovation and new businesses. Instead, we have 20,000 angry, tired, desperate refugees, who live in fear and pressure, and who have come to hate this country. Everybody can clearly see now that this country’s policies towards refugees is a total disaster, and that everybody, both Finns and refugees, suffer from it. The present situation doesn’t make anybody, including the racists, happier or create wellbeing. It only leads to tension and increased negativity and hatred. It’s a total failure. We have to help the government to see that.
The government and Migri are breaching international laws and undermining humanitarian values… I hope Finns wake up to see that the biggest security threat to our country at the moment aren’t foreigners, but this country’s ridiculous fear-based caveman-like government policies, and those angry racists who spread fear and hatred when there is no need for it. They live in some weird bubble where they believe that Arab people are rapists, criminals and terrorists , which is, of course, completely untrue. I feel so sorry for some Finns who don’t know that reality is much more positive, friendly and nice, than the one they see in their minds and clouds their decisions.
Iraqi asylum seeker being put on plane and deported today
Migrant Tales has learned of a new deportation today at around 7 pm Tuesday from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, according to a video below posted on social media sites.
“This terrifies me because it proves to me that human rights don’t apply to us,” an asylum seeker said. “You really don’t know where you’ll be in Finland the next day or even next hour.”
Iraqi Ambassador to Finland, Matheel Dhayif Al-Sabti, told Migrant Tales earlier this month that “Iraq will not accept forced deportations.”
Susannah: Kaksien kärryjen politiikkaa taas.
Olen ollut kiireinen, anteeksi, kiitos ja nyt tulee: Katsoin eilen ma 30.1.2017 A-studiota sieltä ykköseltä uutisten jälkeen.
Ritva Elomaa (Kike) selitti, miten maahanmuuttolinjaukset ovat ehtaa perussuomalaista osaamista. Ja siitä vastuussa on itse Jussi Halla-aho yhdessä hallituksen alkutaipaleen perussuomalaisten ministerien kanssa. Ja se näkyy.
Katso A-studio tästä.
Maita on julisteltu turvallisiksi vailla mitään faktalistapohjaa , ja Migrin pitää toteuttaa tätä järjettömyyttä, ilmeisen poliittisen ohjauksen takia. Hallinto-oikeus on usein ollut ihan toisella kannalla karkotuksista, koska sillä tuntuu olevan eri maatiedot tai ainakin se osaa soveltaa niitä oikean suuntaisesti.
Continue reading “Susannah: Kaksien kärryjen politiikkaa taas.”
Restrictions by the defense forces on dual nationals is discriminatory and should be forcefully rejected
Should it surprise us that a member of an anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is suspicious of dual citizens? Add to the latter that the person who is suspicious is Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö, who is known for his far-right sympathies.
According to information obtained by YLE, and if the story is true, the Finnish defense forces has begun to place restrictions on conscripts who are dual citizens of Finland and Russia. YLE said that no such guidelines existed before.
Finland has considered limiting the role of dual nationals in key public posts for years but has not asked if this is unconstitutional.
YLE reported that despite some circles wanting to limit the role of people with dual citizenship in the army, there is no legislation that permits such restrictions from taking place now. The finance ministry is, however, working on such legislative reforms.
Said Niinistö in YLE:
“I personally take the view that when we talk about professional military positions, there are weighty reasons excluding dual nationality. There will now be a review to clarify this. The required proposals will be prepared for legislation on the Defence Forces on how national security can be improved in filling professional military positions, and when an individual applies for training leading to a professional officer’s commission.”
Read the full story here.
One of the biggest unanswered questions of the YLE story concerning dual nationals is if it is discriminatory.