Category: Enrique Tessieri

PS’ Teuvo Hakkarainen and Olli Sademies: Ethnic agitation charges and racist bravado

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What happens when one present and one former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* politician faces charges for ethnic agitation? Answer: They lie through their teeth and act dumb (which isn’t difficult for such politicians). PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen got sentenced today for ethnic agitation and will have to pay a fine of 1,160 euros. Olli Sademies, a substitute councilman who retired from the police force, is in court today facing ethnic agitation charges as well.  

The court will give its verdict on Sademies’ case on January 13.

Hakkarainen is a good actor. He plays the dumb country boy and starts to making up his own interpretation of events claiming incredibly that he didn’t know that there was a law against hate speech even if he’s a lawmaker.

Moreover, Hakkarainen knows that Finland has a hate crime law because he was one of eleven MPs that wanted to make it redundant tin 2013, according to Jussi Kohonen.

Hakkarainen got charged after he wrote on his Facebook wall in mid-July after the Nice killings: “We’ve got to stop pussyfooting. Muslims out of this country! Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims. We shouldn’t accept Muslims from the Middle East and Africa to our country.”

It’s not the first time that the PS MP has made racist statements.

Below is a recording of him on his first day in parliament after he got elected in 2011.

Here are some other stories:

Like Hakkarainen, Sademies plays dumb as well.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he was quoted as saying in summer by Demokraatti . “What is that ethnic group anyway that I have agitated? Charging me is absurd and it’s a racist opinion.”

Continue reading “PS’ Teuvo Hakkarainen and Olli Sademies: Ethnic agitation charges and racist bravado”

Disingenuous Islamophobes like speaker of parliament Maria Lohela want you and I to forget where they came from

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, who has gone from one scandal to the next, got booed by a large crowd in Helsinki on New Year. Perussuomalaiset (PS)* speaker of parliament, Maria Lohela, who has built her political career by spreading Islamophobic rhetoric, states on her Facebook page that the Finns have lost touch with their good habits by booing the prime minister. 

Lohela, like her populist anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party, the PS, couldn’t be more out of touch with Finland and reality. Politicians like her, who are very selective and suffer from political amnesia, are outright deceitful.

Lohela finds herself in “good company” in the Nuiva manifesto in 2010. She is one of thirteen people who signed the manifesto with three PS politicians (MEP Jussi Halla-aho, former MP James Hirvisaari and Kotka city councilman Freddy van Wonterghem) who were sentenced for ethnic agitation as well as others who have made their political careers by attacking migrants. Some of these are MP Juho Eerola, MP Olli Immonen, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, PS party secretary, and seven others.

Other Nuiva manifesto signatories are MP Juho Eerola, MP Olli Immonen, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, PS party secretary, and seven others.

Continue reading “Disingenuous Islamophobes like speaker of parliament Maria Lohela want you and I to forget where they came from”

Seven months and no justice yet after a Kenyan woman was racially insulted and splashed by a bucket of water

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Remember when a Kenyan woman was sitting outside her home in the Helsinki neighborhood of Helsinki one Sunday afternoon on May 22 and a white Finnish woman splashed a bucket of water on her, her children and their friends after shouting racist insults? Well, nothing has happened since then even if Ruth Waweru-Folabit pressed charges against the woman and complained to the non-discrimination ombudsman seven months ago.

Migrant Tales wrote back then: What is most upsetting about the story is that the police didn’t bother to ask her if she wanted to press charges against the woman that insulted her in a racist manner in public and threw a bucket of water on her, her two children and friend’s children.

Waweru-Folabit wrote to me on November 7 that she still hasn’t heard from the police service and non-discrimination ombudsman regarding her case. “I have tried my best to put this behind me for my kids’ sake,” she wrote, “but some kind of justice would be good.”

How long will it take for justice to take its course?

Continue reading “Seven months and no justice yet after a Kenyan woman was racially insulted and splashed by a bucket of water”

Will Halla-aho be the PS’ savior or the party’s political grave?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A while back I asked a friend what would happen if the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* implode as we’ve seen in the polls. What will emerge from the ruin of that xenophobic party? Will we see another party that is more sinister and more dangerous to cultural diversity?

With PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho’s decision to challenge Timo Soini and run for chairman of the party could well mean the birth of an ever-radical anti-immigration party in the same league as the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party.

Will Halla-aho be the lifesaver of the PS’ problems and succeed at bolstering the embattled party’s poll standings? If we read PS politicians like MP Laura Huhtasaari, the Islamophobe with the white kindergarten teacher smile, the answer is a confident yes.

According to her, “Finland needs Perussuomalaiset values, Jussi is a pioneer, a nationalist who defends our rights. He doesn’t vacillate. He’s not afraid of being labeled because he believes in what he says.”

When watching the news about Halla-aho and how the media reports about this MEP, who was sentenced for ethnic agitation, it’s amazing to note how much fascination and interest there is in a politician who has built his political career on insulting minorities and spreading racism.

Continue reading “Will Halla-aho be the PS’ savior or the party’s political grave?”

A naturalized Finn and businessman cannot open a bank account at the only bank of Pertunmaa

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Pertunmaa is a small town of 1,800 inhabitants 18km off Highway 5 that takes you to Mikkeli. The owner of Pertunmaan Pizzeria, which opened its doors this month, has had trouble opening a bank account for his business at the only bank of the town. 

According to the owner, Rasoul Khorram, who has lived in Finland for six years and is a naturalized Finn, was told by the Osuuspankki savings bank manager Jouko Isokuortti turned him down when he wanted to open a bank account.

“He [Isokuortti] said that I couldn’t open a bank account at his bank because I was a customer of Nordea [bank],” he told Migrant Tales. “He said I didn’t speak Finnish well enough and should take more classes [to learn the language better].”

Khorram protested and said that it wouldn’t be practical to open a bank account at the nearest Nordea branch office which is Mikkeli located 57 kilometers away.

“When I told him that I’d like to get in touch with his manager, he ordered me to leave the premises,” he said.

Considering that Khorram is a Finnish citizen, it’s pretty clear that the Osuuspankki manager’s decision to not let him open an account is arbitrary and discriminatory.

While the interview for this story was made in Finnish with Khorram, the fact that he is a naturalized Finn should be sufficient proof that he can speak the Finnish language.

Pitäjänuutiset, the local newspaper that is read in Pertunmaa and Mäntyharju, wrote a story on the problem.

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Migrant Tales (December 27, 2011): Immigration laws reveal what kind of society we are

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: This opinion piece was published exactly five years ago. Check out what we wrote back then and how immigration law in Finland have tightened. If immigration laws reveal what kind of society we are, what do our immigration laws reveal about ourselves?

Last year, 32,476 asylum seekers came to Finland. While many of us received them with open arms, that welcome eventually turned into suspicion and a sinister wish that they’d leave our country as fast as possible.  

The attitude of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government, after he offered asylum seekers his home in September of last year, not only exposes hypocrisy but reveals moral cowardice in the face of a challenge. 
________________________

Tell me what your immigration laws are and I will tell you what kind of society you live in. Show me how those laws defend minorities and encourage cultural diversity and I will show you hypocrisy.

There is a saying that a person’s true character is not exposed during good times but when there is great adversity.

The global financial meltdown of markets in September 2008 and the euro financial crisis today is testing our “good will” to breaking point.

Far-right, populist and even right-wing conservative groups in countries like the U.S. have succeeded in making  racism sound fair, according to Colorlines.*

There are worse examples of how the spirit of the laws and that of deeds show how our societies are flirting and have succumbed in some cases to the ways of despotism.

A case in point is Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona, who got his wings clipped after the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security stripped him of several federal tools for immigration enforcement, according to Police Patrol. *

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A letter of apology for the disgraceful treatment of asylum seekers in Finland by the government

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Dear Asylum Seeker, 

The cartoon below by Ville Ranta could apply to Europe as well. Instead of having politicians like Perussuomalaiset* Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and other government ministers stating that “you can’t come in because there’s no room for you,” it’s our hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy that has been exposed to the tee. 

Even if some may curse your present, I welcome it. Thanks to you, the over million asylum seekers that came to Europe in 2015, you have exposed our hypocrisy and our exceptionalism.

Aminkeng A. Alemanji wrote in his doctoral dissertation a very good description of how our exceptionalism works:

“The imperfection of the other is used to establish and maintain the hierarchies that put the dominant group [white Finns and Europeans] at the top and the Other at the bottom. [T.] Coates [2015, 105] reminds us that “a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below”, and in Finland it is the Other as a result of his/her imperfection that is below – the valley necessary for the mountain [the dominant group] to be a mountain.”

This is an old cartoon from last year but still topical. See the original posting here.

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Is Christmas a time of joy and hatred towards Muslims?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

An asylum seeker in Finland sent Migrnat Tales this picture at a bus stop in Mikkeli, located about 230km north of Helsinki. Finland is gearing up for the Christmas spirit as some racists post posters full of hatred towards Muslims. We apologize to our Muslim friends for posting such a horrible poster. 

The question about this poster is pretty simple: How come a person can easily place such a poster at a bus stop? Why didn’t they stop such a person? Why didn’t they tear down such a poster?

The people who posted this poster below are the same ones who will tell you with a poker smile that there’s no racism in Finland. They justify their hatred by believing in ethnic fairy tales.

Just taking down these types of posters in silence isn’t enough. Politicians, as well as other civil leaders and the general public, should go public and condemn such racist and Islamophobic diatribe.

Remember when PM Juha Sipilä offered his home in Finland to asylum seekers?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In September 2015, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä offered his home in Kempele to asylum seekers. Even so, the tone and position of the prime minister and the government changed by December when Sipilä said that he couldn’t offer his home to asylum seekers any longer because his hometown in northern Finland wasn’t safe for refugees.

Yes, you read right: The prime minister admits that his small town in northern Finland isn’t safe for asylum seekers. If Kempele isn’t safe for refugees, it isn’t safe for any visible migrant and minority.

It’s incredible that a prime minister admits that he cannot guarantee the safety of people in this country and, worse, does nothing to address such a problem.

The sequence of events in fall-winter 2015 tell it all: kind words by Sipilä to asylum seekers coming to Finland; a rape takes place in Kempele at the end of November, one suspect, who is an asylum seeker, is detained; Kempele residents come out like a lynching party to protest against the asylum reception center in the town, which moves to an undisclosed location.

Read story and watch video here.

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Repatriation agreement between Iraqi Ministry of Migration & Displaced and Finland comes to naught

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Talks between the Iraqi Ministry of Migration & Displaced and Finnish permanent secretary of the interior ministry, Päivi Nerg, have ended without any agreement, according to an official statement, which added that some 5,000 Iraqi asylum seekers have returned from Finland to Iraq. 

The Iraqi foreign ministry has confirmed as well today in a statement the latter by stating that it will not accept any deported Iraqis from European countries.

Last year, 32,476 asylum seekers came to Finland. Of these, 20,485 were from Iraq.

According to Finnish media sources, Finland has forcibly deported some 1,500 Iraqis against their will to Iraq. That compares with 1,600 who returned on their own will and 1,500 through the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Four thousand Iraqi asylum seekers have gone missing in Finland.

Migrant Tales understands that the police have urged asylum seekers to leave the country with a 1,000-euro incentive.

The ministry of migration & displaced said that Iraq would be willing to accept Iraqi criminals but Nerg said that such an agreement wasn’t possible, according to the statement.

Read original posting here.