If there is something to reinforce from the Southern Ostrobothnia district court ruling of the Fares Al-Abaidi case, it is the following: In some cases, the police and the courts play down racist crime.The sentence was a miscarriage of justice.
Al-Abaidi has appealed the ruling.
Why is the ruling a travesty?
Because racism is a toxic component of Finland’s police and justice system.
Imagine scores of people attacked Al-Abaidi in June 2020, but only oneperson was convicted for assault. Racism was not a motive for what happened.
The Iraqi youth’s case is an example of hair-splitting and a miscarriage of justice.
If the authorities are to be believed, racism was not what motivated the attack. The vandalized car that had mamu (a racist term for migrant) sprayed on its side does not prove anything because they never found the suspect.
The victim’s car before……and after. Photo: Mari AaltolaMari Aaltola writes: “What I saw [the vandalized car] was unbelievable. I asked myself who could do something like this to another person’s property, smash every window, tear out the hubcaps and then spray paint in big letters mamu on the side of the car. I was also saddened by the sight and cried and [remembered when] I went with Fares to buy the car. He spent all of his and some of his mother’s savings to buy the car. The car was in bad shape, but I was happy that I had advised them to take full insurance coverage for the vehicle. This allowed them to get compensation for a new car after the insurance company repossessed it. Otherwise, they would have lost all the money since the culprit[s] were never caught [by the police].”
The election in Sweden was of special interest to me since I live next door to the country in Finland. Will the good showing of the far-right Sweden Democrats boost our far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party in the April parliamentary election?
While it is fair to predict that the election result in Sweden should not hurt the election prospects of the PS, I am certain that the party took a lot of notes from the election and is now drafting a campaign strategy that hinges on migration.
Like many, I am not surprised by the election result in Sweden and the rise of the Sweden Democrats. Considering that all the Nordic countries now have large far-right parties that wield political power, it was only a question of when the chickens would come home to roost in Sweden. In Finland, the PS plays the same anti-Muslim tune as in Denmark (Social Democrats today and formerly Danish People’s Party) and Norway’s Progressive Party (FrP).
How can affluent countries with a comprehensive social welfare system that values and professes social equality end up with far-right parties that are hostile and want to exclude people from society who come from different backgrounds?
If we can’t receive an answer to the latter question, could we figure out how got here? Possibly we were always there. Our Nordic social welfare system and values were not meant for people who aren’t like us.
While some will blame migrants for the success of the Sweden Democrats, I would point the finger at the media and political parties like the Moderates, which gave the far-right party a platform of legitimacy to strike.
As of September 11, the future looks bleaker in Sweden and the Nordic region if you are a migrant or minority.
The Nordic saw a predictable political earthquake on September 11, when the right-wing bloc led by the far-right Sweden Democrats nudged the right-wing bloc to victory. The election brought Sweden in line with its other Nordic neighbors: all four now have or had large far-right anti-immigration parties.
Of the four countries, the entrenchment of the far right is best seen in Denmark, where mainstream parties like the Social Democrats tow the Islamophobic line.
The far-right Danish People’s Party came to power in the early 2000 and had steadily worked to turn Denmark into a haven for anti-Muslim rhetoric and hatred.
In light of what happened in Norway and in Finland, what will be the path of the Sweden Democrats to implement their Islamophobic policies?
Step 1 was the election. Step 2 is polluting Swedish politics with more racism. Like in Denmark, “straight” parties like the Moderates or Social Democrats may rob the Sweden Democrats of their support by becoming as Islamophobic as them. It is what happened in Denmark.
September 11 is a bad day for many: 9/11 and the coup in Chile that ousted democratically elected Salvador Allende.
That infamous day will also be remembered when far-right politics came home to roost in the Nordic region.
Incumbent Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conceded defeat in Sweden’s nail-biter election to the rightwing parties led by the far-right Sweden Democrats, reports The Guardian.The rightwing parties received 49.6% of the votes, with the left bloc securing 48.9%.
If anything, it was a long overdue nasty surprise that permitted a far-right Islamophobic party to gain power in Sweden. Today, all Nordic countries have large far-right Islamophobic parties spreading fear and hatred against vulnerable migrants like Muslims and people of color.
While it is unlikely that the Sweden Democrats may hold ministerial posts, the new government led by the Moderate Party may resemble what happened in Denmark. In Denmark, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP) supported minority governments in return for tightening immigration policy
In the lowliest of political stunts to gain power, the Social Democrats in Denmark took up the rhetoric of the DPP and won the elections in 2019. The Danish Islamophobic party saw its popularity nosedive by 12.4 percentage points to 8.7% (16 MPs) from 21.1%(37 MPs) previously.
Fares Al-Abaidi got a hard lesson on Wednesday from the Southern Ostrobothnia district court on Finnish justice: only one person was convicted after a group of white Finns attacked him in June 2020. That person, PV, was forced to pay Al-Abaidi about 3,900 euros for his suffering.
“He got away with only a fine while my life changed completely,” he said. “I was very disappointed [with the sentence],” he admitted. “It was a very, very bad decision.”
Al-Abaidi said that his lawyer had appealed the court decision.
Some questions arise when looking at the case.
Its long 26-month length;
Not all of the suspects were questioned by the police;
No hate crime charges were brought; racism had nothing to do with the cause of the incident;
The district court judge gave his sentence on the same day as the trial began, which is extremely rare in Finland.
Were all these factors due to limited police resources?
Fares Al-Obaidi’s car after it was vandalized in June 2020. The police did not rule out a hate crime back then. Source: Migrant Tales
He said that only one person was sentenced because he was the only one who admitted to hitting him.
“Nobody else admitted anything,” he added. “I don’t know why the police chose to charge only one person. I told my attorney that it wasn’t only one person [who attacked me]. There were more than one.”
Sweden’s center-left bloc led by the Social Democratic party is set for a narrow victory over right-wing opponents in today’s parliamentary election, according to Yle. The biggest upset was the dismal showing of the conservative Moderate party, which slipped into third place after the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.
In light of the boycott against the Sweden Democrats, the Moderate party changed its tune and was willing to form a government with the anti-immigration party with neo-Nazi roots.
The lesson? Don’t copy the rhetoric of xenophobic parties. Voters can vote for the real thing instead of a poor copy.
In Finland, the best example was when the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* split into two parties in 2017. There was the old PS and a lighter version called Blue Reform.
The PS survived as a party, and Blue Reform disappeared from the political map.
Sweden will elect 349 MPs of the Riksdag (parliament) today, and the big question is how well the far-right Sweden Democrats will fare. According to various opinion polls, the Sweden Democrats are seen coming second after the Social Democrats. The biggest upset would be the Sweden Democrats doing better than the conservative Moderate party.
Just like the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in 2011, the Sweden Democrats scored their best election victory in 2010 by almost doubling their support to 12.9% (+29 MPs to 49MPs) from 5.7% (20 MPs) in parliament.
Even if Sweden Democrat chairperson Jammie Akesson assures us that the party has moved away from its racist and neo-Nazi past, some are not convinced.
Up to now, all mainstream political parties in Sweden have blocked the party from forming part of a government.
Why all the commotion and support for the Sweden Democrats?
It’s the same story in all of the Nordic Countries: migration.
In Finland, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* plays the same toxic tune as in Denmark (Social Democrats today and formerly Danish People’s Party), and the Progressive Party (FrP) of Norway.
In Denmark, the Islamophobic narrative has taken hold of the country’s political environment, and the same is happening in Finland and Norway. A big victory for the Sweden Democrats today could shift matters in the country for a long time.
Two rulings in two important cases involving ethnic profiling and suspected hate crime are a further stain on the credibility of the Finnish police. One of these took over six years to get a just ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court, and another one just slapped the hand of the suspect lightly.
Ethnic profiling, which the police have vehemently denied in Finland, saw its date in court after a long, winding, and painful process for the victims.
The legal path of singer Musta Barbari’s mother and sister to the Supreme Administrative Court:
They were stopped on July 9, 2016, by plainclothes policemen in the Helsinki city center on suspicion that they were prostitutes;
The mother and sister refused to give their ID and were found guilty in December 2017 by the police of disobedience;
An appeal was made to the National Non-Discrimination and Equality Tribunal, which found the police guilty of ethnic profiling and ordered them to pay a conditional fine of 10,000 euros to Musta Barbari’s mother and sister;
In April 2021, a Helsinki Administrative Court overturned the National Non-discrimination and Equality Tribunal’s decision;
On Thursday, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland overturned the Helsinki Administrative Court’s ruling.
The ruling in favor of Musta Barbari´s mother and sister is another sad example of how Finland shuts its eyes and ears to the social ill of institutional racism. You can seek justice if you are very patient and willing to take a beating.
“I’m no longer engaging with white people on the topic of race. Not all white people, just the vast majority who refuse to accept the existence of structural racism and its symptoms. I can no longer engage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of colour articulates their experience. You can see their eyes shut down and harden. It’s like treacle is poured into their ears, blocking up their ear canals. It’s like they can no longer hear us.”
While, after much suffering and waiting, Musta Barbari´s mother and sister saw justice, the Fares Al-Obaidi case was just starting.
The Southern Ostrobothnia Administrative Court of Seinäjoki fined and sentenced only one person when a group attacked Al-Obaidi in June 2020.
Migrant Talesspoke with the prosecutor in July. According to him, there was no hate crime case because the attack against Al-Obaidi wasn’t due to his ethnicity.
Al-Obaidi disagrees. He said that they immediately called him derogatory, racist insults like mamu and the n-word when they started to argue. Moreover, only one person was convicted because the others remained quiet.
Two stories that expose injustice and denial in Finland became public this week: First, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland ruled Thursday that the police ethnically profiled singer Musta Barbari’s mother and sister in July 2016. The other news is about an Iraqi youth who white Finns violently attacked in July 2020.
Both cases are not only concerning but revealing. Ethnic profiling and suspected hate crime cases drag their feet in Finland’s legal system. Musta Barbari’s mother and sister finally saw justice after six years, while Fares Al-Obaidi’s case was decided by a court two years and two months later.
US President Joe Biden warned in a recent speech that his country’s democracy is in peril. He pointed the finger at former President Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again or Make Attorneys Get Attorneys) followers.
We asked in a recent posting if Biden labeled MAGA Republicans “semi-fascists,” why couldn’t we call the far-right Perussuonalaiset (PS)* the same?
Even if the PS’ and other radical-right followers have not yet stormed Parliament like on January 6 at the Capitol, the party’s far-right brand of rhetoric has caused a lot of harm to our democratic institutions. The hate speech they spread against migrants and minorities is one of many examples.
True, the PS wants to sanitize its hateful rhetoric because they want to form part of a next government after the April parliamentary election.
Source: Yle
Who is Mäenpää? He’s the PS MP who called asylum seekers “invasive species” and did not face an ethnic agitation charges since his parliamentary immunity was not lifted.
