Category: Enrique Tessieri

Why the Finnish media and police do not have credibility with minorities and migrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

You bump into news and scoops.

When I was making a living as a journalist many years ago, I learned that the best way to get scoops was by having good sources. Even if this is clear, the question is how do you get those good sources so that you bump into news and scoops?

I use today in Migrant Tales the same strategy I used to get news and scoops when I lived off journalism. If you do things the right way with patience, news and scoops will come to you.

Rubbing off the old sell-by dates with new ones is easy. All you need is nail-polish remover, a rag, and a stamp with fake sell-by dates. Read the full story here.  Unscrupulous employers will do anything to exploit migrants and asylum seekers.

A classic example is the most recent example of a food distributor utilizing asylum seekers and changing the sell-by dates of its old products. This news “came to us” because we have a reputation for speaking out for vulnerable groups like asylum seekers. That reputation is backed by solid knowledge of the topic.

The fact that we get big scoops and the national media doesn’t so often is because it represents the interests of white Finnish power and privilege. The same goes for the police. Migrants and minorities don’t turn to the police for help in many cases because they do not trust them.

For these reasons, unscrupulous businesspeople and exploiters of migrants in Finland will continue to conduct business as usual because politicians, the media, and society are more concerned with reinforcing stereotypes and victimizing migrants and minorities than representing and protecting their rights.

We must stand up for our rights. Nobody else can do it for us except for us.

 

 

Where is Resham’s powdered milk produced?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Resham milk powder, which is distributed by Milkmagic Oy, proudly displays the Finnish flag stating “produced in Finland.” Just for curiosity sake, Migrant Tales sent an email Thursday to the company asking where the milk powder is produced in Finland. 

I gave the company until 6 pm today to respond to my question but we haven’t heard anything from them.

As a consumer, I would like to know where the powdered milk is produced in Finland.

“Justice was served” with the 9.5-year prison sentence for brutally attacking a Pakistani migrant in February

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The wife of the Pakistani migrant, whose husband was brutally attacked by three Finnish white youths in February, is satisfied with the 9.5-year prison sentence handed by a Vantaa court Friday. The three youths were sentenced for attempted murder. 

The incident has caused concern among the Pakistani and Muslim community.

If you ask some members of the nursing staff at the hospital where the Pakistani migrant was treated in February and March for his wounds, they will tell you that they have never seen such a case of brutal violence in their careers.

The attackers used a knife, ax and a pointed object to attack the victim. Removal of the stitches alone took four hours, according to the nurses.

“We are satisfied with the court ruling and it is not common that such a stiff sentence are handed in Finland,” she said. “We are satisfied because justice was served. The fact that it was not a hate crime is a bit confusing.”

Even if the victim and his wife still insist that what happened was a hate crime, the police were quick to deny it. The day after the attack, the police told the wife that it could not be a hate crime because the perpetrators “were intoxicated.”

Later on, the police told the wife that what happened to her husband was not a hate crime because “it wasn’t planned.”

As everyone knows, a hate crime can be committed even if the person is intoxicated or isn’t planned.

Migrant Tales asked the investigating police officer, Detective Chief Inspector Mikko Minkkinen, if he had made such statements to the wife but denied ever saying them.

After the attack, which took place on Friday, it was on Tuesday that the police put out a statement.

Detective Chief Inspector Minkkinen denied on that day to the media that what happened was not a hate crime.

Some believe that the Finnish police may play down racism as a motive in such cases for fear of repercussions from the migrant community. The majority of Pakistanis are Muslims.

Read the full story here.

The wife of the victim said that her husband is afraid to go out at night. “I don’t allow him to go our alone an he feels uneasy about being out alone even when it starts to get dark,” she added.

Continue reading ““Justice was served” with the 9.5-year prison sentence for brutally attacking a Pakistani migrant in February”

Three white Finnish youths that brutally attacked a Pakistani migrant sentenced to 9 years and 6 months in prison

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A Vantaa court sentenced three white Finnish youths who brutally attacked a Pakistani migrant in February to a prison term of nine years and six months, according to victim’s family. 

The brutal nature of the attack is so horrible that we cannot publish a list of the wounds that the Pakistani sustained. The victim was stabbed over 20 times and suffered multiple fractures on the skull from blows from an ax. This was only part of the wounds he received.

Migrant Tales will update the story.

Read the full story here.

Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen states there “is no room in Finland for Sharia law”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finnish Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen surprised participants at an Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations  (ETNO) meeting on Tuesday by stating that “there is no room in Finland for Sharia law or other efforts towards a parallel society,” according to YLE News.

“Finland is an open, international country that is rich linguistically and culturally, and where basic rights belong equally to everyone… Finnish justice gives equal protection to everyone, regardless of skin color, religion, gender, culture or other background[s],” he was quoted as saying.

His comment caused a swift reaction from politicians like Social Democrat Helsinki councilperson Abdirahim Husu Hussein, who wrote on Facebook that the minister of justice “was flirting with Islamophobia” and that “nobody was demanding Sharia law in Finland.”

 

Read the full story here.

What “parallel society” is Häkkänen speaking of? Is it the one he is nurturing and encouraging by his hostile statements?

Continue reading “Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen states there “is no room in Finland for Sharia law””

Exploitation of asylum seekers in Finland for profit and illegal activities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales will publish and expose this week a foods distributor that pays asylum seekers under the table to change the sell-by dates of their products. We have a written statement and many pictures sent to us by one former employee that show how easy it is to change sell-by dates of products.

Below, is a letter sent to the authorities about a Helsinki-based foods company that allegedly hires asylum seekers and pays them under the table. As the letter states, the former employee was asked to allegedly change the sell-by dates of products like flour, rice and others.

In a new post, Migrant Tales will publish the name of the suspected company.

The Regional State Administrative Agency (AVI) and the Helsinki health authorities have the name of the company. The health authorities have paid a visit to the company’s warehouse.

 

Hello, my name is BLANK, I used to work for an Espoo-Helsinki-based foods company for a year and three months in weighing or distributing vegetables and foodstuff around Finland. I also used to do work like changing the sell-by dates of food products like wheat, rice, and many others. [The owners of the company] BLANK and BLANK used to threaten me that if I didn’t change the sell-by dates, they would tell the police. At the time I had two rejections for asylum and a deportation decision. [One of the owners] BLANK used to distribute the goods to Asian shops, Asian, Arab and Indian. The sell-by dates of the goods were forged; the company changed expired foodstuffs from 2017 to 2018.

The big question about this illegal activity is who to blame?

  • Is the culprit the company? Yes, definitely.
  • Is the culprit the hostile environment against migrants in Finland? Yes.
  • Is the culprit the asylum seeker who is exploited? No.

Another question is if one company does this, how many more do it?

 

Ali’s journey (May 20, 2018): Last full day in Mikkeli, Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales
In the past months, we have followed twenty-one-year-old Ali’s difficult life in Finland as a young asylum seeker.* He’s been detained and sent to the Joutseno immigration center in October for 32 days and again in February for a shorter time. 
On both occasions, he was released but decided that he’d return to Iraq “voluntarily” after the supreme administrative court overturned his appeal.Ali is a converted Christian and is a member of the Pentecostal Church of Mikkeli, where he’s lived at an asylum reception center during most of his stay in Finland.

“I went to the church today, and they gave me their blessings,” he said. “I’ve said goodbye to some of my friends at the camp. It hasn’t been an easy day because the reception center has become my home with friends I know for a long time.”

Ali’s stay in Finland and Germany was about a year and a half.

“The journey to Finland from Iraq feels shorter than the one tomorrow back to Iraq because hope fueled it,” he said. “But the journey back to Iraq feels that it will be longer because there are a lot of question marks and mixed feelings.”

Ali admits that he has not slept well during the last weeks.

“A lot of good things happened to me in Finland but a lot of bad things as well,” he continued, adding that his detention in Joutseno was one of the low points of his stay in the country.

Continue reading “Ali’s journey (May 20, 2018): Last full day in Mikkeli, Finland”

Little to no trust in the Finnish police profits those who exploit needy migrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales gets a steady stream of accounts of exploited asylum seekers by unscrupulous employers. Some of the stories are tragic since they push asylum seekers, who get paid under the table, to do the company’s criminal work.

The last person that such migrants would turn to for help is the police. The police in Finland has shown time after time that it is no friend of the migrant community never mind that of undocumented migrants.

With the help of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, who heads the most anti-immigration governments in a long time, the police have lost chunks of their credibility with asylum seekers, who are in contact with them when they break them the news at the police station of their second rejection or hold them like common criminals in cells and deport them back to their home countries.

If the police and authorities had credibility with asylum seekers and migrants, a lot of crimes such as human trafficking would come to light. This is an unfortunate situation because the culprits are making money off people who have no rights in this country.

While there is little interest in the Finnish media about how migrants are exploited by greedy employers never mind politicians sticking up for them, Migrant Tales will always stay true to these people exposing those who exploit them.

We will stand by them even if few would care less.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: The use and spread of torture has been a key component of US foreign policy

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Why is it that when the US media speaks of the use of torture, they near-always refer to post 9/11. It is wrong because it gives the impression that the systematic use of torture happened during George W. Bush’s administration (2001-2009) watch. The CIA and the US with France were not only promoters in spreading torture in other countries but developing torture “infrastructure” and techniques. The US media should stop misleading us about this outlandish practice.

Henry Kissinger, or known as “Killinger” by his enemies, was one of the avid salespersons as secretary of state (1973-77) in promoting military dictatorship in Latin America and the use of torture. Read the full story.

New investigation finds Laura Huhtasaari’s plagiarism of master’s thesis more extensive than originally believed

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A new investigation of the plagiarism of far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party vice president and MP Laura Huhtasaari’s master’s thesis showed that “major parts” were copied and were more extensive than Jyväskylä’s University’s conclusions, according to YLE News.

An investigation by the university earlier this year of Huhtasaari’s plagiarism showed about 10% was copied, but an investigation by MOT journalists revealed that about 30% of her thesis was directly copied from just one source.

Here is the question: Why does the university say one thing and the MOT journalists’ report says another? Will there be another investigation?

The fact that the university came to one conclusion and an investigation by YLE showed more extensive plagiarism does not make the university look good. If Jyväskylä University wants to protect its credibility, it would be vital for it to answer the MOT journalists’ findings.

Before the master’s thesis scandal in January, Reija Härkönen revealed how Huhtsaari had plagiarised the writing of others in her blog entries.

* After the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity.  One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic. 

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.