Migrant Tales, Author at Migrant tales

Finnish Neo-Nazi thugs suspected of assaulting a man in broad daylight

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Migrant Tales

How is it possible that a man is beaten up in broad daylight next to the Helsinki Railway Station next to a gathering of Neo-Nazis? How is it possible that this far-right group, which calls itself Kansallinen vastarintaliike (SVL), allegedly beat up the person, who is sent unconscious to the hospital to die six days later from cerebral hemorrhages?

How is it possible that a group like the SVL posts a video below and boasts about what on that day?

The victim lying on the street unconscious in a video posted by neo-Nazis.

What kind of a message does the death of Jimi Joonas Karttunen send to migrants, minorities and other people who are against SVL’s hateful ideology?

Will Karttunen’s death encourage the usual wishy-washy near-silence of the government and even of the police service towards far-right violence?

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Contrary to 2014, it’s a good matter that Pekka ja Pätkä’s n-word movies caused outrage

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Migrant Tales

If there is anything positive to write about the Pekka ja Pätkä movies shown this month that use of blackface characters, the n-word and depict blacks and Amerindians as happy-go-lucky buffoons, it’s the outrage that at least one caused.

In 2014, when YLE aired Pekka ja Pätkä n-word and Ketjukolari, two of the comedians most racist movies, there was no reaction except for the odd social media comment. When I protested the showing of these movies two years ago, YLE didn’t even bother to respond.

When I sent a new email this week to YLE protesting the showing of these movies, I did get a response. It’s the same one that program manager of TV1, Pentti Väliahdet, released to the media.

I wonder if YLE will dare to show these two racist movies again two years from today?

We’ll see but it’s clear that they’ll have to think twice if they do.

Reija Härkönen: Ajat ovat nyt sellaiset, että on kirjoitettava pääministerille

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Kirjoitin kirjeen pääministerille:

Pääministeri Juha Sipilä

Valtioneuvoston kanslia

PL 23, 00023 Valtioneuvosto

Hyvä pääministeri,

Tiedän, että monet ihmiset ovat kirjoittaneet teille samasta asiasta, mutta pyydän teitä lukemaan ne kirjeet ja kaikki tulevatkin. Maamme tulevaisuuden ja ihmisten hyvinvoinnin kannalta ei voi olla tämän tärkeämpiä kirjeitä luettavana tai asioita hoidettavana.

Te, Juha Sipilä, Suomen pääministeri, olette yhdessä muiden ministerien kanssa vastuussa siitä, että maamme toimii kansainvälisten sitoumusten ja ihmisoikeussopimusten mukaisesti. Nyt meillä vallitsee tilanne, jossa osa ihmisistä – pieni, mutta äänekäs vähemmistö – hurraa ja ilakoi, kun pakolaisia palautetaan epäinhimillisiin oloihin, jopa kuolemaan.

Suurelle enemmistölle on luonnollisesti tärkeää, että maahanmuutto ja pakolaistenkin vastaanotto on viranomaisten hallinnassa, mutta siihen ei tarvita raakuuksia. Harva meistä toivoo, että maahanmuuttovastaisten kansanedustajien, äärioikeistolaisten kiihkoilijoiden ja reppanarasistien tyydyttämiseksi tehdään sellaisia päätöksiä, jotka ovat epäinhimillisiä, humaaneille ihmisille kestämättömiä ja maamme kansainvälisen maineen kannalta arveluttavia.

Continue reading “Reija Härkönen: Ajat ovat nyt sellaiset, että on kirjoitettava pääministerille”

Single mother Iraqi asylum seeker with two children plead for help to not be deported from Finland

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales got a phone call Thursday from an Iraqi woman* who spoke a few words of English. “Do you speak German?” she asked.

An Arabic-speaker called later the forty-year-old woman, who is one of the thousands of unlucky asylum seekers facing deportation after Finland decided to tighten its immigration policy.

The woman’s woes do not only hinge on deportation but to the fact that she is a single mother of two: her son is seven and her daughter, who suffers from mental problems and requires psychiatric help, is eight years old.

Considering the harsh lives that these asylum seekers have endured in their home countries, their misery doesn’t end in Europe but is exacerbated in some cases.

The woman, who claims to be suffering from cancer, is feeling desperate for her children and for herself.

Some pictures of when her children on the left are sleeping at the railway station, where they were picked up by the police and taken to a hospital. The Italian police collected money between themselves to buy refugees food, according to her. The single mother has lost contact with her husband.

If there is a silver lining in this family’s story, it’s that they won’t be deported back to Iraq but to Italy.

Continue reading “Single mother Iraqi asylum seeker with two children plead for help to not be deported from Finland”

Pekka ja Pätkä n-word movie with blackface actors raises questions and outrage in Finland

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Contrary to 2014, when YLE aired Pekka ja Pätkä n-word (1960), the new showing of the movie Wednesday with blackface actors raised quite a storm on social media and was even reported by MTV, tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, and HBL.

Apart from showing a racist movie that insults black people, showing it during a time when anti-immigration sentiment and xenophobia is another question that it raises.

Reaction to the movie was so strong on social media that the program manager of TV1, Pentti Väliahdet, released a statement below.

The statement doesn’t do any justice to some of the 31,000-strong African and Afrofinn community in Finland and doesn’t even offer an apology.

YLE appears defiant showing its white privilege and power.

Väliahdet justifies the airing of the movie by stating that one of YLE’s responsibilitiies is to air black-and-white Finnish movies from 1940-60. Older viewers watch these movies, according to him.

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YLE airs in September two of the most racist movies by Finnish commedians Pekka ja Pätkä

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Migrant Tales

I read with surprise from Anna Pöysä’s Mafalala blog that YLE will air on Wednesday Pekka ja Pätkä nekereinä (1960), which is a racist movie with blackface actors. That was one big surprise but the biggest one of them all happened on September 6 when Pekka ja Pätkä acted in their most racist movie ever, Ketjukolari (1957).

Ketjukolari was taken down by YouTube apparently because of its racist content. Even if the movie is in Finnish, the stereotypical images of human-eating Africans, which look like characters taken straight from a 1950s racist Tarzan cartoon, leave no doubt about the movie’s content.

Amerindians in the movie are also pictured in a racist and demeaning manner.

Most Finns have learned that the use of the n-word neekeri is racist. Why, then, will YLE air tomorrow a racist movie that uses blackfaces and the n-word in its title?

Are these two movies and example of how YLE serves our ever-growing culturally diverse community?

In June, a parliamentary working group that looked at the future role of the broadcaster decided to do away with the term “multicultural” and replaced it with “cultural diversity.” The phrase that was eliminated was YLE “support[s] tolerance and multiculturalism.”

One matter that the member of that parliamentary working group didn’t appear to understand is that a good synonym for multiculturalism is cultural diversity.

Two of the most racist movies by Finnish comedians Pekka ja Pätkä are aired on YLE.

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(Migrants’ Rights Network) Workplace immigration checks and raids: What needs to be done

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Alina Müller

The cooperation of the management of Byron Hamburger’s with Home Office immigration enforcement officers in a sting operation earlier in the summer symbolises everything that can go wrong for migrant workers when employment law and immigration policy merge.

For many people with deep inside knowledge about the vulnerable position of migrants in the UK today, the key issues are unfair immigration regulations and harsh exploitation of workers. The type of collaboration with enforcement measures that the Home Office expects from employers when it comes to policing their workforces adds to the risks for migrant workers today.

Strong interest in this issue prompted an MRN-organised panel discussion last week. It considered what we can learn from the Byron Hamburgers case as well as similar incidents. The aim was to develop strategies for successfully challenging immigration workplace immigration raids.

The broader context

The session looked at the Byron Hamburgers case in the broader context of worker rights and immigration enforcement to try to understand the challenges trade unionists and others concerned with the rights of workers now face.

Strategies to push back against immigration raids in the workplace need to take account of the following:

Raids are concentrated in specific sectors and specific jobs within that sector, typically low-wage and precarious such as the hospitality sector.
Migrant workers in these sectors, particularly undocumented workers, face conditions produced by an increasingly unregulated labour market coupled with the ‘deportability’ factor of non-citizens. They are particular vulnerable and live with the constant ‘unpredictable possibility of deportation’
People do move between different immigration statuses and the requirements for a specific status change constantly. So we have to be careful about differentiating between documented and undocumented workers.
Immigration raids are racialised and gendered. A new report by Corporate Watch revealed that 12 times more men than women are arrested in workplace raids. People from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India make up 75% of those arrested. Restaurants and takeaways are the types of businesses hit in the main.

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Iraqi asylum seeker allegedly attacked by four Finns at the Kontula shopping center of Eastern Helsinki

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales understands that a young Iraqi asylum seeker was allegedly attacked from behind by two men and two women at about 2am on Sunday at the Kontula shopping center of Eastern Helsinki. The young man, who was found unconscious by the police, was taken to a hospital but released later.

“The asylum seeker was taken back to the hospital this [Monday] morning because we noticed that he couldn’t speak clearly, complained of pains in the head,” a source told Migrant Tales on condition of anonymity. “We called the ambulance and they took him to the hospital.”

Considering that it may take months for the police to investigate a hate crime, do they take what happened seriously considering that the asylum seeker may be deported to Iraq before his case comes up.

What happened at the Itäkeskus shopping center on Sunday?

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Migrant Tales

It appears that there is no evidence to support that a Muslim woman was allegedly attacked by 10 people at the Itäkeskus shopping center of Eastern Helsinki, according to Helsingin Sanomat. This is great news since the alleged victim is safe and sound.

Maryam Askar is a Somali activist who has appeared on television a number of times. She allegedly gave the racist sensationalist online publication an interview about what happened on Sunday.

Granting a racist publication like MV an interview is a definite trap and no-no. Or did she give MV an interview? The online publication makes up a lot of news.

Video material received by Migrant Tales shows one scene where the woman, using a niqab, not being allowed to enter the shopping center because of Suomi ensin (Finland first) supporters and even being shoved by one.

Apart from being shoved, one Suomi ensin protestor insults her by stating “what the f**k are you doing here.

The woman in the niqab is allowed to enter the shopping center after the police arrive.

This is pretty serious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SrE59LLoco

Continue reading “What happened at the Itäkeskus shopping center on Sunday?”

White Finns attack a pregnant Muslim woman at the Itäkeskus shopping center

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Migrant Tales

A Muslim woman who was four-months pregnant was attacked Sunday by around ten white Finn suspects at the Itäkeskus shopping center located in Eastern Helsinki, reports Helsingin Sanomat.

This story has been updated here.

At the time when the Muslim woman was attacked, a demonstration by far-right Suomi ensin (Finland First) was taking place outdoors at the same shopping center.

The victim, who had her veil and clothes torn when the police came, was able to identify one of the attackers, according to tabloid Iltalehti. Witnesses were able to identify the other ones.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

(UPDATE): Christian Thibault, an anti-racism activist, said that the police should be more effective in trying to defuse potential problems at the Itäkeskus shopping center.

“Some people who took part in the Suomi ensin demonstration are accusing the Muslim woman of provoking them,” he said. “That may be a question but isn’t the demonstration a provocation to the peaceful people who visit Itäkeskus?”

It would be disingenuous to claim that there is no connection with the alleged attack against the Muslim woman and the xenophobic climate in Finland that is fueled and maintained by groups like Suomi ensin and other far-right xenophobic groups.

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