Migrant Tales does not usually publish candidates, but we do make exceptions. MEP candidate Paco Diop of the Left Alliance is that exception.
Diop, who hails from Turku and is a preschool teacher, states on YLE’s election compass three core values as an MEP candidate: “Human rights, respect for nature, and animal rights.” The rise of the far right in the upcoming European Election is his greatest source of concern, which threatens social cohesion, diversity, and inclusion, according to him.
Diop’s political awakening happened after the tragic death of his daughter. “I joined the Left Alliance in 2019 and it turned out to be the perfect home for me.”
Diop, who admires social fighters like Malcolm X, said that his aim as a politician is to be a voice for the voiceless and oppressed. “This is my lifetime goal,” he added.
Left Alliance MEP candidate Pacp Diop.
Diop, who has lived in Finland for 18 years, considers his second homeland a country full of contradictions.
“On the one hand we are supposed to be the happiest country in the world and then there are studies that show us to be the most racist country in Europe,” he said. “We have to ask for whom Finland is the happiest country.”
According to him, one of the biggest challenges of Finland’s growing culturally and ethnically diverse communities is for us to be aware of the toxicity of white supremacy and how it turns people of color, black people, and minorities like the Roma into victims. He said that society must take steps to challenge and address Finland’s racism problem.
“…the job of the politician is to guarantee the safety of its own citizens and to guard its borders, and that’s what Finns expect.”
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Laura Huhtasaari, A-studio(3.6.2024)
The answer given by PS MP Huhtasaari to justify pushbacks and deaths is a raw example of the inhumanity used during Nazi Germany to justify the wholesale slaughter of Jews, minorities and other enemies of the régime.
The question answered by Huhtasaari is on the Yleelection compass and a poll, which asks: “A person trying to reach Europe can be turned back at the external border, even if it would put their lives in danger.”
What else can we expect from politicians who justify the deaths of people after pushbacks? What kind of treacherous slippery slope are we on in Finland?
The above MEP candidates in the 2019 MEP election didn’t mind if people drowned in the Mediterranean. All of them, except Eija-Riitta Korhola, have moderated their radical stances. Henna Virkkunen, Sebastian Tykkynen, Mauri Peltokangas, and Pirkko Ruoho-Lerner would care less for a person’s safety and life if he or she were a victim of pushbacks at the border. Source: Yle
If we want and to shed light on what may happen at the Finnis-Russian border, we can look at the inhumane treatment suffered by asylum seekers in other EU borders.
Of these, there is the Greek-Turkish Evros River border, where pushbacks and human rights violations are the order of the day. Migrant Tales was a small part of this important documentary.
One of the questions not addressed by the media, never mind politicians, is what will spare the Finnish-Russian border from becoming another shameful EU example of violent pushbacks and Human Rights violations?
Remember the last 2019 European election? Migrant Tales created quite a stir when it named the candidates who would allow asylum seekers to drown while coming to Europe.
We wrote in 2019: The Alma Median EU election compass shows that (85/234) MEP candidates of the Perussuomalaiset* and National Coalition Party (NCP) were the most eager to allow migrants to drown in the Mediterranean. Even a neutral, or “no opinion” answer, is problematic. Does it mean you look the other way when people drown?
Here is the question on the 2019 election compass: “Is it the obligation of the EU to save all those migrants who attempt to come to Europe and who are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean?”
The same question is missing from the 2024 election compasses, but question 11 onYle‘s election compass is very similar. It asks: “A person trying to reach Europe can be turned back at the external border, even if it would put their lives in danger.”
Of those MEP that were elected in 2019, Laura Huhtasaari and Teuvo Hakkarainen (both “strongly agreed” that the EU should let people down in the Mediterranean) and Henna Virkkunen of the National Coalition Party “disagreed” that people drowning should be helped.
All of the above candidates were running in the 2019 MEP election and didn’t mind if people drowned in the Mediterranean. All of them, except for Eija-Riitta Korhola have moderated their radical stances. Virkkunen, Tynkkynen, Peltokangas, and Ruoho-Lerner would care less for a person’s safety and life if he or she were a victim of pushback at the border. Source: Yle
Don’t believe snow jobs like our tough stance is against smugglers, not people in danger of death. Such an explanation by Henna Virkkunen in 2019 makes no sense and is a cop out.
One of the matters that has amazed me about National Coalition Party Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is his alternative truth about non-existent the threat of the hard right in Finland. Despite the racism and far right scandals that have eaten away at his government’s credibility, Orpo actually believes that parties will change if you go to bed with them.
“In my opinion, [the Perussuomalaiset PS*] are not a far-right party anymore,” Orpo was quoted as saying in March in Politico.
That statement was made after he repeatedly said that there are no far-right parties in government.
Prime Minister Petter Orpo revealing his true colors. Source: Facebook
When the issue of far-right parties in government was brought up at a session of parliament by Green MP Maria Ohisalo, Orpo was evidently irritated by the question.
“There is no hard right or extreme right in Finland,” he snapped. “Those are pretty strong accusations If you give the impression that some people are Putinists or pro-Russian, or that some party in Finland is destroying the rule of law! I hope this is not about campaigning in the European elections.”
In writing the Finland chapter for the European Islamophobia Report 2023, I sometimes give a partial preview of the “Central Figures in the Islamophobic Network.” Last year’s pick could well be the same candidates for 2024.
An imam I spoke to a few years ago described well the difference of the racism of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and the National Coalition Party (NCP). “The Perussuomalaiset don’t hide their racism but the NCP does,” he said.
With the entry of the PS in government, I have noticed that the party has gone in the closet like the NCP with its hostile racist views. The PS, like the NCP, can claim with a poker face that the migration policy of the government isn’t racist because it is in line with other Nordic countries.
If this is the case, we could then conclude that all the Nordic countries’ migration policy is racist.
Despite the latter, the PS continues to be one of the most important facilitators for Finland’s Islamophobic, far-right network. It is Hungarian Trojan Horse making its presence felt in all circles. Like the NCP, it uses the cover of institutional racism to hide its vile racism.
The PS continues to have close ties with groups that are hostile to Muslim groups like Suomen Sisu, Soldiers of Odin, Hommaforum, Kansallismielisten liitouma (National Alliance), Sinimusta Liike (Black-and-Blue Movement), the banned neo-Nazi Pohjoismainen vastarintaliike, and others.
All the 39 MPs of the PS elected to parliament based their campaign on the party’s anti-immigration theme.
The main PS ministers of government, Minister of Finance Riikka Purra, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, Justice Minister Leena Meri, Minister for Development Cooperation Ville Tavio, present and former Minister of Economic Affairs Wille Rydman and Vilhelm Junnla, Speaker of Parliament Jussi Halla-aho, maintain the hostile environment against migrants and minorities.
The European Islamophobia Report 2023 will come out in the summer.
Interior Minister Mari Rantanen and her far-right follower of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* like to copy and paste. Apart from inciting memories of the 1930s, when fascism and anti-Semitism were the order of the day, the PS continues to spread its Islamophobia and fascism.
The analogy that the PS makes in their EU election brochure should be condemned for being disgusting, racist, and inciting hatred.
An official complaint would be in place that the picture incites ethnic agitation.
How similar are the two pictures? The one on the left could not be found online. Nigel Farage scaring people before the Brexit vote. Source: Independent
“When a clown moves into a palace he doesn’t become a king, the place becomes a circus.”
A Turkish proverb
Finland has turned into a show of lying politicians who no longer rely on facts but on prejudice and bigotry. Even if we mention the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, National Coalition Party’s (NCP) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is the ringmaster, saying one thing and meaning another.
The only conclusion I can come to after living decades in Finland is that the country’s racism problem is getting worse.
The government’s ignorance, lust for power, and neo-conservative economic policies are concerning. It suggests that the government has few problems in throwing under the bus the rule of law, Human Rights, and international agreements.
One part of Finlnad’s, or particularly the government’s, alternative reality is its migration policy, labor market, and changes to social welfare.
These are not changes but they are referred to by the government as paradigm changes:
changing the period of residence from five to eight years for citizenship;
tougher rules to get a permanent residence and citizenship;
prohibit asylum seekers from getting a work permit;
speed up deportations and asylum applications;
tighter family reunification requirements;
a person will be forced to leave the after being unemployed does not find employment in three (non-specialists) or six months (specialists);
imprison undocumented migrants;
temporarily suspend asylum rights at the Finnish-Russian border;
deny dual citizenship rights to Russian nationals.
Politicians from the PS and NCP will tell you with a poker face that the paradigm changes in migration policy have nothing to do with racism since “we are bringing to line out policy with the rest of the Nordic countries.”
Could we conclude that all the Nordic countries’ migration policies are then racist?
“The population changes, problems mount.” Let’s have a frank chat about the Great Replacement theory. How white Finns are becoming a minority and how Finland is being taken over by Muslims. “Let’s have a frank chat about the Great Replacement theory. How white Finns are becoming a minority and how Finland is being taken over by Muslims. Source: Facebook
Interior Minister Mari Rantanen and Finance Minister Riikka Purra before they were elected in 2023 and appointed ministers. Source: Facebook
The politicians leading Fnland in government leave a lot to be desired. Prime Minister Orpo has given them a platform to fulfill their xenophobic yearnings and racist antics.
Social Democrat MP Tytti Tupparainen said something that few in the media dared to ask. Eleven months of right-wing xenophobic policies have led us to even consider suspending the rule of law, Human Rights, and Constitutional rights through the pushback law.
Tuppurainen considered at A-talk the government’s pushback law as a Trojan Horse to spread the PS’ and NCP’s anti-immigration policies. She pointed her comment at Jukka Kopra (NCP) and Mauri Peltokangas (PS), two MPs who have made their career on spreading racism.
“Jukka Kopra has said that we should be able to turn back all asylum seekers. Mauri Peltokangas has spoken of them in very ugly terms as parasitic animals. With this attitude, we want to be careful that the government does not use this law as a pretext to drag Finland’s immigration policy in a more restrictive direction.”
The response by Kopra to Tuppurainen was an example of his and the NCP’s alternate state of reality. “I am in favor of a restrictive immigration policy precisely so that resources can be allocated to those who really need help,” he said.
The Finnish government has called for comment on its proposed six-million-euro action program against racism by June 10th. The program’s development began last year when then President Sauli Niinistö was questioned at an international press conference about racist remarks made by ministers in the Petteri Orpo government.
Announced in May, the program calls for anti-racist programs in ministries, schools, and volunteer organizations. It highlights the adoption of a national holocaust remembrance day and promises to make holocaust denial illegal. Other welcome issues, though modest in substance, is a reference to Islamophobia, but nothing on specific measures.
There is also no mention of intended legal reforms in response to charges against Finland by the EU Commission (ECRI) regarding weak legal protections against racism. It would be a systemic change isf such measures were adopted but there is little in the program outline of that nature.
That is likely because such changes could get ministers like Riikka Purra- who recently reiterated her view that there was a conspiracy to replace white Europeans with immigrants- in trouble.
Her social media remarks about fantasizing shooting immigrant kids on a commuter train, as well as Minister for Economic Affairs Wille Rydman’s emails about wanting to ban Muslim women rather than their hijabs, was what got the government in trouble to begin with.
There is no specific mention of Africans, although an EU study recently found that group to be more discriminated against in Finland than in any country in Western Europe. Finland’s largest immigrant minority, its Russian community, is also totally ignored although in other recent legislation, their travel and relations with families in their home country have been seriously hampered.
The 480-kilometer-long Evros River, which divides Greece and Turkey in an uneasy truce, is just one of many places where EU policy on pushbacks goes largely unchecked. Finland is now planning the same thing on the Finnish-Russian border.
The first screening of the documentary will take place in Vienna on May 31. We plan to screen the documentary tentatively in Finland on 4 June.
In a nutshell, researcher Milka Sormunen sums up in a good essay what the law is all about: legalizing illegality.
Moreover, would you trust a government and Interior Minister Mari Rantanen to spearhead such a law? Rantanen is an Islamophobe that sees Muslims even under her bed.
In an editorial, Helsingin Sanomat hit it right on the dot: “The stage is now being set for how easily another government in another situation could also violate the constitution and international treaties.”
Two questions arise from the draft pushback law: – Will it be effective in stopping what the government calls the instrumentalization of migrants at the Finnish-Russian border? – If Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government is ready to go as far as to trash Human Rights, international agreements, and the rule of law, what will he do next? Which minorities will be targetted? Russian-Finnish dual citizens?
The dismantling of the rule of law, like what happened in countries like Hungary or Argentina during the 1970s, usually starts with convincing arguments and threat scenarios.
If the parliament approves the pushback law, it will put Finland on a slippery slope, where xenophobic and racist politicians will “Instrumentalize” migrants and minorities to dismantle the rule of law.
Prime Minister Orpo and his cronies in government speak of paradigm changes in migration, labor, and social welfare sectors. Such actions have a price and may create paradigm changes to our democracy.
