After Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra was forced to eat her words after falsely claiming that the stabbing of a 12-year-old in Oulu was the work of youth gangs, few if any analysis is being made about the government’s hard-right immigration policy and its spread of conspiracy theories like the great replacement.
In racist code, “youth gangs” means non-white youths.
A twelve-year old boy, “who is a Finnish citizen but with a foreign background, was stabbed in Oulu Thursday. Source: Yle.
Fiancne Minister Purra and Interior Minister Mari Rantanen disguise far-right conspiracy theories like the great replacement as “statistics.” The most recent example was a talk a little over a week by Purra and Rantanen.
Migrant Tales has published many stories exposing how parties like the Perussuomlaiset (PS)* use migrant crime to attract support and votes. Finance Minister and PS Chairperson Riikka Purra jumped the gun Thursday by blaming a terrible stabbing in Oulu on “youth gangs.”
“Youth gangs” is code for black and brown youths.
Masters at making storms in tea cups, especially when it involves migrants and asylum seekers, Purra wishes in the first tweet a speedy recovery to the victim. In the second tweet, where she is forced to eat her words, Purra does not even wish a recovery apparently because the victim is a so-called “person with a migrant background.”
On Thursday, Purra tweeted (formerly Twitter):
“In broad daylight, in the middle of a shopping center, a young man is stabbed. I hope the victim survives. With street crime, gangs, etc., we are unfortunately following the same trend as in other [European] countries. The government is working, but it’s horrible, what have we arrived to in this country!”
On Friday, Purra was forced to eat her words.
Note that in the first tweet she blames “youth gangs” at the top but mentioned the suspect’s far-right ties at the end of the second tweet.
“Extremism, drugs, robberies, gangs – the problems are growing. We must take the deterioration in security seriously, increase penalties, and stop shying away from all kinds of violence. The victim in Oulu is 12 years old, the perpetrator has a background in the far-right movement, according to the police.”
These two tweets demonstrate how desperate the PS is after its stinging election defeat on Sunday.
I still remember clearly the 2011 general election when the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party saw the number of MPs surge to 39 from 5 previously. Some thought that the PS would implode as the Rural Party did in 1972.
It took over 13 years for the PS to suffer its worst election loss in the European parliamentary election, when it saw its support dive from 13.8% in 2019 with three MEPs to 7.6% to one MEP.
The shock of the MEP election result was written all over Riikka Purra’s and PS secretary Harri Vuorenpää’s faces. Source: Iltalehti.
Before the election and if opinion polls are to be believed, PS chairperson and Finance Minister Riikka Purra thought that the party would end up in third place with three MEPs.
The secret to the PS’ success would be its favorite scapegoat: migration. Purra and her party poured it on before the election by villifying migrants and supporting a Rwanda model to send asylum seekers to Africa.
Four days before the election, Interioir Minister Mari Rantanen and Riikka Purra hosted a talk about how migration means trouble for society. It was an opportunity to step up on the xenophobia gas pedal and spread the conspiracy theories like the great replacement.
Interioir Minister Mari Rantanen, copies Nigel Farage and depicts migrants as “swarms.” Source: Perusuomalainen
Two critical questions emerge after the MEP election: – Was it a knock-out blow that will send the PS flying back to the minor single-digit political leagues? – With growing dissent against Purra and her party’s austerity policies, will it force the party to split like in 2017?
If the political price that the PS will pay for its defeat on Sunday was a massive political blow, it’s clear that 2011-2014 was a lost decade when Finland flirted with racism and fascism.
I wonder what is going to happen to the shameful pushback law? There are more humane ways to deal with asylum seekers. You don’t have to trash human rights and the rule of law to make your hostile point.
Mitenköhän käy häpeällisen rajalain kanssa? On inhimillisempiäkin tapoja käsitellä turvapaikanhakijoita. Ei tarvitse heittää roskiin ihmisoikeuksia ja oikeusvaltiota saadakseen aikaan vihamielistä pointtia.
COME AND JOIN US ON 27.6 at ROUHILANKATU 37, MIKKELI 17-21 FOR AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION.
Tule mukaan 27.6. klo ROUHILANKATU 37, MIKKELI 17-21 mielenkiintoiseen keskusteluun.
Just like a junkie craving for a shot, the campaign by the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* showed revealed their immigration dependency problem. Like a gas pedal, the PS has stepped on the immigration topic to attract voters.
Immigration is a highly politicized topic in Finland as well and directly related to the success of the PS over the last decade. During all the last four parliamentary elections, the PS has successfully used an immigration crime topic to attract voters.
The European parliamentary election was a fiasco for the PS. Source: Yle
As a non-white Finn, the campaign by the likes of PS Chairperson and Minister of Finance Riiikka Purra, Interioir Minister Mari Rantanen, and Simo “Rwanda Model Now” Grönroos, was enough to make your stomach turn.
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.
