Category: Enrique Tessieri

Day 10 of the Helsinki demonstration by Iraqi asylum seekers: “We will demonstrate for as long as necessary”

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Here’s a show of respect and admiration for the Iraqi asylum seekers protesting in cold February in Helsinki against the harsh asylum policies of the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), which is an extension of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government.

Nour M Jamal is one of the many Iraqis that have taken part in the demonstrations demanding a change in asylum policy and deportations by the police service.

“We feel disappointed with the authorities even if [Interior Minister Paula] Risikko and the head of Migri [Jaana Vuorio] visited us,” he said. “Both of them didn’t say anything new.”

Jamal said that one of the nice things about the demonstration is the support they have received from the Finns.

“People that pass by have shown their support to us giving us money, clothes and even demonstrating with us,” he said. “We are grateful to them and appreciate their support.”

The picture above shows a large number of demonstrators including children and women.

“To those that claim wrongly that we left our women and children behind,” continued Jamal, “we tell them that they can speak to the women who are with us in the tent.”

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Migrants are “scum” and should be erased from the map say Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and other far-right politicians

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Some are asking with manifest unease if this will be the year of the far-right populists like Dutch Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen of France and Frauke Petry of the German  Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The first test will  be in Holland on March 15 followed by another nail-biter in France on April 23 and May 7.

Wilders doesn’t hide his hatred for Moroccans by calling them in the video below “scum.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3AkiWhvCYs

Emboldened by US President Donald Trump, the far-right in Europe believes that it’s now or never as far as elections are concerned.

But there is a problem: What about if Trump’s chaotic and volatile style of leadership scares voters away in Europe from voting for people like Wilders, Le Pen never mind AfD and possibly in 2018 for Italy’s Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement?

One may rightly ask how is it possible that an Islamophobic politician like Wilders is the favorite to win in March after being sentenced in December for hate speech? How can he be accused of calling Moroccan migrants “scum” and still be popular with the voters?

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Interior Minister Paula Risikko compares asylum seekers demanding justice to bigots

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Green Party Chairman Ville Niinistö correctly criticized Interior Minister Paula Risikko Saturday for stating that Iraqis concerned about being deported to their country as “extremists” that are in the same league as racist bigot groups like Suomi Ensi. 

The conservative National Coalition Party interior minister’s rhetoric derives from President Sauli Niinistö’s claim in May of last year that only extremists debate while the silent majority is silent.

Such a simplistic analysis by the president is how disgraced former US President Richard Nixon wanted to capitalize on a song called Okie from Muskogee that was supposed to depict, among other things, that most USAmericans weren’t against the Vietnam War and didn’t take drugs.

President Niinistö’s comments and views about Finland’s ever-growing culturally diverse society have revealed his suspicion. Certainly eyeing reelection in 2018, the Finnish head of state has made statements in the same way as anti-immigration politicians do. He first makes them and then retracts.

Here’s a good example:

“At some point, someone has to recognize that, here and now, we cannot fulfill all of our obligations under international agreements,” according to the Helsinki Times.

And then retracted in Helsingin Sanomat:

“I never said anything like that [ditching international agreements]. What I said was that it’s difficult here and now to meet all the obligations [of such refugee treaties].

Tweets Green Party head Niinistö about Risikko putting asylum seekers in the same group like bigots:

He states: “Unacceptable that Risikko equates an asylum seeker family that is worried about its life as extremists like Suomi Ensin.”

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Johan Bäckman and Jussi Halla-aho: Two public figures that are hated differently by the Finnish media

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Below are two public figures that are treated differently by the Finnish media. Both are way off in their views. The one on the left is Johan Bäckman, who gets scorned by the national media for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin stances, while Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Jussi Halla-aho, gets a more benign reception despite the fact that he’s Finland’s number one public racist. 

Contrary to Bäckman, Halla-aho, who was sentenced for ethnic agitation in 2012, Helsingin Sanomat saw his racist diatribe before 2011 as a strange expression of “freedom of expression.”

There is nothing wrong with protecting freedom of expression but there is a problem when journalists cannot distinguish between an important human right and racism.

Halla-aho, who like other far-right European politicians are pro-Russia, gets a much better reception from the media despite his extremist views of immigration and Muslims.

You can listen to Johan Bäckman’s interview in RT here and read (in Finnish) Jussi Halla-aho’s story in MTV here.

Why is Bäckman shunned by the Finnish media while Halla-aho has some acceptance, even tacit understanding?

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Farrah and her three-year-old child: Don’t deport us back to Iraq from Finland!

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Farrah* is an Iraqi woman who came to Finland in September 2015 with her then one-year-old child. She left Turkey in the hope that she’d get a residence permit and would be able to bring her husband and two children in Turkey, aged 10 and 12.

“They [Finnish Immigration Service] didn’t renew my [one-year] residence permit which expired on January 17,” she said sounding as if out of breath on the phone. “I haven’t seen my family for [almost] two years.”

Since it is no longer possible to give residence permits to people like Farrah and her three-year-old child for humanitarian reasons, they face a bleak prospect: deportation from Finland.

A picture posted on Farrah’s Facebook page.

Farrah and her child are perfect examples of how Finland’s harsh immigration policy rubs salt on people’s lives. Before April, residence permits were granted for humanitarian reasons but that was scrapped in vote that MPs of the ruling parties [Perussuomalaiset (1), National Coalition Party and Center Party] and opposition Social Democrats and Christian Democrats approved.

Even if Farrah would have been able to get her residence permit renewed, there is no way she could bring her family in Turkey because of tighter family reunification guidelines.

“I came to Finland [almost] on foot from Greece believing that this was a humanitarian country that gives residence permits [asylum] to mothers and their children,” she continued, adding that she is today “very confused” and worried because she didn’t know what is going to happen to her.

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Picture of the week: Standing up for our rights to asylum and hurrah for our side!

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We’ve been watching, like all of Finland, the brave asylum seekers who are standing up since the weekend to a government and Finnish Immigration Service that cares little to nothing for their fates. 

These pictures that they are taking and the stories of defiance they are telling form part of the ever-culturally diverse history of Finland. We will look back on this protest like many others as milestones in our history.

This is how social movements ignite thanks to injustice, incomprehension and the steadfast courage of those who believe in our cause.

Migrant Tales salutes all of you brave people in Helsinki.

Source:

Iraqi asylum seeker FS: Deportation countdown begins

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The police service in Seinjäjoki, a city located 30km from the Finnish Emigrant Museum of Peräseinäjoki, told a young Iraqi asylum seeker “FS”* on Monday of his third rejections for asylum by the supreme district court and has two choices: To return “voluntarily” or “by force” to Iraq.

“They [police] said I have to leave in a week,” the young man’s voice, clearly distressed, said by phone speaking excellent English.

Migrant Tales got the following email from  on Tuesday:

          Email sent to Migrant Tales Tuesday by FS.
Who is this young man?

He arrived to Finland in October 2015 and got his third rejections from the supreme district court on Monday.

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(Migrant Tales 12.2.2017) Dear Sweden, don’t play ball with the Sweden Democrats – Finland is the best example of the disaster that awaits you

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Dear Sweden, 

In all of the Nordic region we have seen far-right populist parties rise in this century with a hostile even vicious anti-immigration and anti-cultural diversity agenda. Of all the Nordic countries, you are the only one in the Nordic region where populist anti-immigration parties have not formed directly or indirectly a part of government. 

A poll in November, however, showed a sharp rise of the far-right Sweden Democrats to 21.5% when compared with 12.9% it got in the 2014 parliamentary elections and not trailing too far behind the Social Democratic Party (25.7%) and Moderates (22%).

The Sweden Democrats are the third largest party today in the 349-seat Riksdagen (parliament) with 49 seats (12.9%) in 2014 compared with 20 seats (5.7%) they won in 2010.

In an analysis piece by Expo, an anti-racism and anti-fascism NGO in Sweden, they explained the rise of the Sweden Democrats in 2010 to the Riksdagen in the following words:

“The Sweden Democrats gain from presenting themselves as an alternative to the so-called establishment,” wrote Expo chairman Daniel Poohl. “The bloc politics that has marked the election campaign has turned the Sweden Democrats into a distinct third alternative, an underdog.”

Poohl continues to warn us in 2016 about the Sweden Democrats: “That’s where we come in. This is the white paper [stating that they aren’t a racist party and have no ties to fascism] that the Sweden Democrats would have to do, but will never be able to write. The racism found in the Sweden Democrats isn’t something that belongs to history but is a part of the party’s concept.”

Migrant Tales wrote the following letter to Sweden in june 2015 warning about the perils of playing ball with a populist party that loathes immigrants:

“Today, you, dear friend in Sweden, are the only country that can restore sanity to this part of Europe and effectively challenge this force that is undermining and threatening our Nordic values. We need you to hold out and show leadership, which has been shamefully lacking in the rest of our region.”

Read the full story here.

However, it looks like there is a tear in the cordon sanitaire that excluded the Sweden Democrats from Swedish mainstream politics. Anna Kingberg, the head of the Moderates, said that her right-wing conservative party would be ready to negotiate with the Sweden Democrats, according to Politico.

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Inspired by Donald Trump’s racism in USAmerica, Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri stokes the fires of xenophobia

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Argentina has a reputation among some Latin Americans of being the most racist country in the region. The election of President Donald Trump has emboldened politicians like Argentinean President Mauricio Macri to parrot his USAmerican counterpart’s racist worldview. 

Argentina, like Canada, Australia and the United States, is a nation built on immigration. When we speak of immigration, however, we have to stress that we mean white European immigration.

Between 1881 and 1914, over 4.2 million immigrants moved to Argentina from Europe.[1] By 1914, 30.3% (2.358 million) of the country’s total population was foreign born with as many as 49.4% of the inhabitants of the capital Buenos Aires being born elsewhere. [2]

When you ask Argentineans about what happened to the Amerindians, which were wiped out of their lands in the nineteenth century, some of their answers justify genocide. “There were so few of them,” is one response you may hear, which means that they were near-non-existent and therefore it was acceptable to commit genocide.

Few Argentineans know that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Argentina was a Spanish colony until 1816, that 38% of the population of about 400,000 people were whites with 32% being blacks and of mixed black ethnicity. [3]

European immigration during the second half of the nineteenth century and in the following century effectively whitewashed Argentina of other visible ethnicities such as blacks and Amerindians.

While Argentineans proudly claim that they are a tolerant and understanding country because they took in so many immigrants, we must ask to which immigrants and groups were accepted.

Read the full story here.

Racist comments by some white Argentineans reinforce how racism and bigotry are still alive and kicking in the country. “White” in Argentina means anyone who has a European background. Those of mixed mestizo ethnicity, Europeans mixed with Amerindians, are called disrespectfully cabecita negra, or little black head.

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If YLE has exposed discrimination against dual nationals in the defense forces why don’t they call it institutional racism?

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Why isn’t the national media or any other NGO in Finland calling out YLE’s scoop about how the defense forces and ministry of defense could be in violation of our constitution and an example of institutional racism?

Why doesn’t the media or anyone else for a fact state clearly that statements by President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, who want to find a way to get around Section 6 or our Constitution by discriminating against dual nationals, isn’t seen as labeling and victimizing whole groups?

Why doesn’t anyone say clearly that much of the debate on dual citizenship is embedded in denial about a social ill like racism in Finland?

It is incredible that during our centenary celebrations of 2017 as an independent country that President Niinistö doesn’t see how his remarks and apparent disdain for dual citizens labels and harms a whole group.

With respect to Sipilä, how many trust him considering that he broke his promise to house asylum seekers in his home in September 2015?

Those attacking and labeling dual nationals in Finland represent power and Finnish exceptionalism. They would care less about minorities like Finnish Russians, even if what they say reinforces discrimination and harms minorities.

Continue reading “If YLE has exposed discrimination against dual nationals in the defense forces why don’t they call it institutional racism?”