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Category: Enrique Tessieri
Asylum seeker in detention cell 406: Administrative court halts deportation order temporarily
After a nerve-racking week, The Administrative Court has stopped temporarily deportation proceedings of Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 in Joutseno*, Finland.
“I was relieved when I heard the news from the lawyer (Friday),” he said. “This has given me hope and I almost gave up hope and didn’t mind if I died.”
Even if the deportation was stopped it doesn’t mean that the asylum seeker is out of the woods.
“On my second application for asylum I got a rejection from Migri (The Finnish Immigration Service),” he continued. “I don’t know how long it will take for the administrative court to decide but it may take as much as 3-6 months.”
The Iraqi asylum seeker said that he would like to be freed from detention but that the authorities are skeptical because he traveled to Germany, where he was deported back to Finland.
“I have told the police that I will not go anywhere or leave the country if I’m freed from detention,” he continued. “This detention center is a horrible place. There are human smugglers and murderers. What am I doing in such a place?”
* The asylum seeker who was locked up in this cell thought he was in Lappeenranta but in fact he was at the Joutseno immigration removal center located 20km away.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Racism is everywhere. Our denial allows us to pin it on one group
“When people speak of racism in Finland they refer to the Perussuomalaiset* and Blue Reform. They do so to wash their hands of the social ill by claiming that it is a minority fringe group that is the country’s racism problem. Racism is everywhere in Finland and so well-entrenched that it forms part of our institutions and permits us to deny and deceive ourselves of the existence of the problem.”
Racism is not granting public spaces to Others but denying the right of migrants and minorities to have such spaces as equal members of society.
* 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.
Puhemies Maria Lohelan kauheimmat sitaatit: Onko hän sittenkin vain mörkö?
Yksi asia on selvä jos lukee puhemiehen ja entisen perussuomalaisen, nykyisten sinisten kansanedustajan, Maria Lohelan, kirjoituksia 2008-2016: ne ruokkivat vihaa maahanmuuttajia kohtaan ja vähemmistöjen vastakkainasettelua. Lohela on politiikko, joka vihaa ja kyseenalaistaa erilaisuutta yleistämällä ja ruokkimalla ennakkoluuloja.
Lohelan pienessä maailmassa erilaisuus ja toiseus eivät kuulu julkiseen tilaan Suomessa, koska se kuuluu vain hänen kaltaisilleen suomalaisille.
Lohela sanoi puhemiehen valinnan jälkeen ettei “kaduta yksikään kirjoitus.”
Kun Lohela valittiin vuoden käyttäytyjäksi 2016, hän väitti saman kuukauden aikana: “On naiivia kuvitella, että hyvin erilaisesta kulttuurista tuleva henkilö rajan ylitettyään omaksuu suomalaisen yhteiskunnan arvot ja käytöskoodin. Suomalainen maan tapa ei ole kaikkien mielestä maailman paras. Joku toinen pitää irakilaista, venäläistä tai kiinalaista tapaa kaikkein parhaana. Lue koko juttu tästä.
Vaikka Lohela on kylvänyt vihaa ja epäluuloja maahanmuuttjia ja vähemmistöjä vastaan, hän saa tunnustusta ja kehuja yhdistyksiltä ja ihmisiltä jotka väittävät taistelevansa yhdenvertaisuuden ja tasa-arvon puolesta. Hänet jopa nimitettin eduskunnan puhemieheksi 2015.
Continue reading “Puhemies Maria Lohelan kauheimmat sitaatit: Onko hän sittenkin vain mörkö?”
¿Por qué no hay una calle en Finlandia que lleva el nombre Rosa Emilia Clay (1875-1959)?
Una pregunta simple: ¿Por qué no hay una calle que se llame Rosa Emilia Clay en Finlandia? Clay era la primera africana que recibió la ciudadanía finlandesa en el año 1899. No existe una calle que lleva el nombre de Rosa Emilia Clay en Tampere, donde vivió un tiempo antes de emigrar a los Estados Unidos en 1904, ni tampoco en el pueblo de Mustinlahti, donde fue maestra de primaria en 1898.
Es tiempo ya que pongan una calle con el nombre de Rosa Emilia Clay.
Rosa Emilia Clay.
Asylum seeker in detention cell 406: “[I] just [want] to be in [a] safe place and live in peace”
Photos by Asylum Seeker in Detention Cell 406
I asked on Saturday the young Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 to show with pictures his world which is now a barred window that exposes some buildings and the rainy, overcast day. He messaged that he is “just nervous and stressed about the next week what will happen.”
The asylum seeker will find out next week whether it is deportation back to Iraq. He’s a Christian, and he claims that his father was killed in Iraq because he converted to Christianity.
It is not only punishment for an innocent person to be detained in a cell like the young asylum seeker in Lappeenranta, but hard on those that are in contact with him.
I can only imagine what he is going through as time ticks and nears him to his fate.
I too was once locked up in a detention cell in Argentina during the dirty war (1976-83) for forgetting my ID. There was also a barred window at the place I was detained without glass that exposed the overcast day, too. I remember hoping to turn into a bird inside that cell so I could fly to freedom but I couldn’t.
Asylum seeker in detention cell 406 wrote that he too hopes to be free but cannot think straight because he is too stressed and empty.
He wants to thank those who wrote to him.
A day in the life of an asylum seeker in Finland:
Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406: “Migri doesn’t believe I’m a Christian”
Just like the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) proclaims violent countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia to be “safe” for such nationals but not for Finns, they don’t have any problems about deporting you back to such countries if you are a Christian. If what Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 in Joutseno* states is correct, his life is in danger if deported as a Christian back to his former home country.
The document below, provided by the asylum seeker is an interview with a grand mufti, an authority that interprets and spells out Islamic law. Grand Mufti Mahdi Ben Ahmed Al-Sumldei states quite clearly in the document that any Muslim that changes religion should suffer death.
“The death of such a person is based on an order by the prophet Muhammed: a person who changes his religion must die,” the document states citing a book.
The asylum seeker in detention cell 406 alleges that his father was killed in Iraq in 2010 for being a Christian.
“They warned that if my father converted to Christianity he and his family would be killed,” the asylum seeker said. “We escaped to Syria [after he was killed] and didn’t want to return [to Iraq] because we feared for our lives.”
“I didn’t mention this in the first interview with Migri because fear hit me,” he added. “I was afraid to tell anyone this fact about my family. I fear for my life in Iraq.”
* The asylum seeker who was locked up in this cell thought he was in Lappeenranta but in fact he was at the Joutseno immigration removal center located 20km away.
Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406: “I fear they will deport me next week”
We published last week a story about Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 in Lappeenranta, Finland. He was detained on October 23 in the eastern Finnish city of Mikkeli by the police and sent to Lappeenranta.
The Iraqi asylum seeker launched a new case for asylum while in detention, but it was rejected. His lawyer said that if the appeal doesn’t go through his deportation could happen as early as next week.
Here is an excerpt from our messaging this evening:
The picture on the left was taken last week by the asylum seeker from his detention cell last week. The picture on the right is of the same detention cell but taken tonight.
If anyone wants to send messages of hope to Asylum Seeker in Detention Cell 406, they can do so by emailing to [email protected]
Let’s hope everything turns out well for him.
Exposing white Finnish privilege #42: Labeling and shaming
Migrant Tales published in 2015 a Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism that aimed at highlighting the too frequent shoddy reporting by the national media of our ever-growing non-white community of Finland. A story published by Iltalehti on October 27 is not only an example of shoddy journalism but one that is racist as well.
One of the oldest stereotypes about the Roma minority in Finland is that they are thieves and cannot be trusted.
The Iltalehti story reinforces such a stereotype with a story about a 30-year-old woman, who shoplifts food from a market and hides it under her skirt. While the story doesn’t use the term “Roma” once, they use code to identify the ethnic group: “hides produce under her skirt.”
Read the full story (in Finnish) here.
White Finnish privilege #42
One of the ways that white Finnish privilege exposes itself is through the media. The story by Iltalehti of the suspected Roma shoplifter is an example of how stereotypes of specific ethnic groups are maintained.
Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #42: Labeling and shaming”
Exposing white Finnish privilege #41: An Islamophobic politician and gender equality
A campaign for gender equality by Naisjäjestöt NJKL is an excellent example of white privilege and denial. In the tweet below with four pictures of only white women, we know that Elisabeth Rehn and former Helsiniki Bishop Irja Askola have spoken out against racism and hate speech. However, on the top right hand of the picture we find Blue Reform* (New Perussuomalaiset) MP Maria Lohela, who made her political career by spreading Islamophobia and hatred towards migrants.
I remember before the 2011 elections Lohela’s hostile posts against Muslims. She was one of the signatories of the Nuiva Manifesto in 2010. What does the it propose? In the simplest terms it is a manifesto that aims to further disenfranchise migrants and minorities in this country.
Here are some of the policy recommendations that Lohela endorsed in 2010:
- Finland should not copy Sweden’s “multicultural” policies;
- The Finnish state should stop financing immigrant groups’ culture, language, identity and religion;
- They want to keep neighborhoods white with a red herring argument that they are against them becoming ghettos;
- Endorse white supremacy by keeping neighborhoods “white” and peppering migrants as far apart from each other as possible so they will lose their culture and identity;
- The manifesto recommends that new migrants should only be given social assistance for a year maximum. This, as anyone understands, is unconstitutional;
- Deport migrants who commit crimes even to countries that are responsible for gross human rights violations;
- Finnish citizenship will be granted on a conditional basis and can be revoked.
The policy recommendations of the Nuiva Manifesto are a far cry from social equality never mind gender equality. That is why Lohela’s picture in the Naisjärjestöt NJKL campaign is problematic.
