Social media reaction to Friday’s vote in parliament that saved Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Juha Mäenpääfrom facing ethnic agitation charges has been lively.
Parliament (Eduskunta) voted on Friday not to lift Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Juha Mäenpää’s parliamentary immunity, which needed a five-sixths majority to pass. The final vote tally was 121 in favor of lifting parliamentary immunity, and 54 against; 24 MPs were absent from the voting.
Mäenpää equates his victory to President Juho Paasikivi (1946-56). He considers his “invasive species” comment to “sturdily pursing Finnish interests.”
Below are some reactions on social media to the vote.
“A gloomy and shameful day in the history of Finland. Parliament did not obtain the majority required to remove parliamentary immunity from Juha Mäenpää (Perussuomalaiset, or Basic Finns party) to be prosecuted for the crime of hate speech. Mäenpää compared last year at a session of parliament that people seeking refuge are invasive species. His speech fuelled debate on the limits of free speech and whether incitement of hatred, violence, and racism fell under that category. For the Basic Finns spokeswoman Riikka Purra, lifting parliamentary immunity from prosecution would have undermined freedom of expression in parliament. For the leader of the party, Jussi Halla-aho, the comparison between unwanted immigration and invasive species was a “humorous comment” to attract the attention of the government that should focus more on these points. This is very serious, such an argument can justify any outrageous outburst that is said in parliament under the protection of freedom of expression. Let’s be attentive.”
The racist in a culture with racism is therefore normal.
Frantz Fanon (1925-61)
Parliament (Eduskunta) voted on Friday not to lift Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Juha Mäenpää’s parliamentary immunity, which needed a five-sixths majority to pass. The final vote tally was 121 in favor of lifting parliamentary immunity, and 54 against; 24 MPs were absent from the voting.
Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen was disappoined by the vote.
“Following the public debate [on Mäenpää’s immunity], I could guess that this would be the outcome,” she was quoted as saying in Yle. “But yes, I am disappointed with the outcome. It gives the impression that a minority that voted [in parliament] signals a more acceptable attitude towards racist hate speech.”
One of the most significant aspects of today’s vote was the high number of national Coalition Party MPs who were absent. One third or a total of 13 MPs out of 30 MPs were absent from the voting.
In June last year, Mäenpää had labeled asylum seekers “an invasive species.” In his defense, he said that “invasive species” is not an ethnic group even though the vast majority of refugees to Finland are Muslims.
Mäenpää equates his victory to President Juho Paasikivi (1946-56). He considers his “invasive species” comment to “sturdily pursing Finnish interests.” Read the full story here.
While Mäenpää said that he’d choose his words more carefully in the future, others fear that the vote sets a worrisome precedent. Like Social Democrat MP Hussein Al-Taee said on Wednesday, hate speech pundits and racist bullies are always testing how far they can draw the line.
The use of demeaning labels was used two days ago in parliament by PS MPs like Mauri Peltokangas, who referred to refugees as “welfare shoppers.”
If Al-Taee is correct, not only is parliament on a slippery slope but I believe the whole of Finland. The rise of an Islamophobic party like the PS in 2011 is the clearest example that we have been on that slope for many years.
Below are the names and party of the MPs who voted against lifting Mäenpää’s parliamentary immunity from prosecution:
37 PS MPs (Juha Mäenpää absent)
Sanna Antikainen
Juho Erola
Ritva Elomaa
Jussi Halla-aho
Petri Huru
Olli Immonen
Vilhelm Junnila
Kaisa Juuso
Arja Juvonen
Toimi Kankaanniemi
Ari Koponen
Jari Koskela
Jouni Kotiaho
Sheikki Laakso
Rami Lehto
Mikko Lundén
Leena Meri
Jani Mäkelä
Jukka Mäkynen
Veijo Niemi
Mika Niikko
Tom Packalén
Mauri Peltokangas
Sakari Puisto
Riikka Purra
Lulu Ranne
Mari Rantanen
Minna Reijonen
Jari Ronkainen
Sami Savio
Jenna Simula
Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo
Ville Tavio
Sebastian Tynkkynen
Veikko Vallin
Ville Vähämäki
Jussi Wihonen
6 Center Party MPs
Hannu Hoskonen
Tuomas Kettunen
Pasi Kivisaari
Mikko Käärnä
Juha Pylväs
Mikko Savola
5 Christian Democrat MPs (all of the 5 MPs voted against)
Sari Essayah
Antero Laukkanen
Päivi Räsänen
Sari Tanus
Peter Östman
4 National Coalition Party MPs (one third or 13 MPs of the 38 MPs were absent)
Expelled from the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* parliamentary group for mocking George Floyd’s death in a tweet, he now said that he would want to return to his former parliamentary group.
A day after he was expelled from the parliamentary group earlier this month, Turtiainen was adamant: “I am not going to request joining [the parliamentary group] again, but they can come to ask me with cap in hand,” he said according to Yle.
But things are now different since Turtiainen has had a change of heart. He wants to join again the parliamentary group that ejected him.
Eating his words, Turtiainen appears like a mouse pulling petals and singing a familiar tune: The PS loves me, I don’t love the PS, the PS loves me…
The Finnish parliament voted Friday not to lift Juha Mäenpää’s parliamentary immunity, which needed a five-sixths majority; 121 voted in favor and 54 against. A total of 24 MPs were absent.
Those who voted against were 37 Perussuomalaiset Party MPs, 6 Center Party MPs, 5 Christian Democrat MPs, 4 National Coalition Party MPs, 1 Movement Now MP, 1 MP Ano Turtiainen.
The Finnish parliament (Eduskunta) showed once again its racism, bigotry, and fascism in an over four-hour debate on lifting Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Juha Mäenpää’s parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
Lst week, the constitutional law committee voted 12-5 to lift MP Mäenpää’s immunity after he compared asylum seekers last year with “an invasive species.”
Another worrisome matter that the debate about Mäenpää’s parliamentary immunity showed is the snail pace of justice. Prosecutor General Raija Toivianen’s decision to charge Mäenpää for ethnic agitation happened in January, about six months after Mäenpää’s infamous outburst.
One typical complaint by victims of racism, hate speech, and hate crime is that due justice takes too long in Finland.
While it appears that Mäenpää’s immunity will not be lifted on Friday, the likely vote will be another blow to the parliament’s credibility by Finland’s anti-racism, migrant and minority communities.
Mäenpää can lose his parliamentary immunity if five-sixths of parliament or 167 out of 200 MPs vote in favor. The PS can block the proposal with its 38 MPs.
Wednesday’s debate in parliament revealed as well how racism, especially Islamophobia, has deep roots in Finland. Left Alliance MP Paavo Arhimäki highlighted some of the excuses given by MPs for Mäenpää’s racist behavior.
According to Arhimäki, some of the excuses used by PS, National Coalition Party, and Christian Democrat MPs were, “choosing his words incorrectly, it was a gag, a joke, a slip [of the tongue], a bad joke, those who don’t understand [what he said] have no sense of humor.”
Social Democratic MP Hussein Al-Tee said that he hoped that members of parliament would stop using labels that Other people like himself.
“I don’t deserve it, nobody else deserves it, and this hall should be a place that unites Finns,” he said and continues later on. “I hope that this hall will not be used to Other people like myself and people belonging to my [ethnic] group.”
MP Hussein Al-Tee speaking bfore parliament on Wednesday. Source: Yle.
Al-Taee pointed the finger at PS Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho, who labeled him last week a fake refugee (partalapsi).
“He [Halla-aho] gave incorrect information about my [refugee] background and It felt really bad [what he said],” he added. “Finns are those people who are ready to commit to our laws, regulations, work and pay taxes. If they are unable to do so, society will help them get on the right road.”
Even if Mäenpää and the PS continue to deny that they didn’t mean to label any group with “invasive species,” few will disagree that he meant asylum seekers and Muslims.
In Finland, asylum seeker is code for Muslim.
According to the National Geographic, “An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area. Invasive species can cause great economic and environmental harm to the new area.”
PS MPs played down what Mäenpää said as did others of the Christian Democratic Party, National Coalition Party, and Center Party.
PS MPs like Kristian Laakso considered the whole parliamentary debate “nonsense” and a waste of time. “Is this debate worth it ?” he asked.
Another PS MP, Mauri Peltokangas, who is a member of Suomen Sisu, slammed the debate an “inquisition.” PS parliamentary group leader Ville Tavio went as far as to say that if we take steps to limit criticism of Islam, it is a step from being a civilized country to one that is “a stone-age Islamic state.”
Opposition Christian Democrat MP Päivi Räsänen said that lifting Mäenpää’s immunity is questionable since hate speech isn’t clearly outlined in the law (sic).
As mentioned, a number of PS MPs are members of the far-right Suomen Sisu association, which recommends white Finns not to marry outside their group.
Some PS MPs who are Suomen Sisu members include Olli Immonen, Jenna Simula, Mäenpää and Peltokangas, among others who were former members like Halla-aho and Juho Eerola.
Suomen Sisu chairperson Henri Hautamäki published on the same day as the debate in parliament a provocative blog entry titled “Total cultural war.”
While most of the text is a rant for Finnish white supremacist consumption, Hautamäki claims that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is a Marxist conspiracy by minorities to destroy Western culture and institutions.
Encouraging people to take action against such a conspiracy, the Suomen Sisu chairperson said that universities and the education system should be “cleaned” of non-nationalistic influences. Other institutions that should come under the control of the people is the media, the role of the state must be changed, according to him.
The only Finnish media to comment about Hautamäki’s column was Kansan Uutiset.
What would you say if you were a black East African nursing student in Finland and were aggressively escorted out of a train by two security guards? One held you by the arm, and the other had her in a chokehold.
What about if you are forced out of the train, you end up scraping and bruising your knee and elbow on the ground? And what about if the security guards, who saw your bruises, ordered you to leave the station?
A comprehensive study in 2018 on ethnic profiling by the University of Helsinki showed how ethnic profiling, especially by security staff, was a source of special concern.
“Many said [in the study] that security guards were often rude and treated them roughly, even violently,” said the University of Helsinki Professor Suvi Keskinen of one of the ethnic profiling study’s findings.
One migrant told Migrant Tales that some ticket inspectors can act in a racist manner. “They can be racist because they profile you [because you are not white],” he added. “The worst of the lot can sometimes be the non-white Finnish ticket inspectors.”
The unfortunate incident happened to the black woman on a local train one stop before her stop at Koivohovi in Espoo. The reason? Her phone went dead, and therefore could not show her monthly pass to the inspector.
“I pleaded with the inspector and later with the security guards to allow me to charge my phone so I could show them my ticket (see picture below).
The monthly pass ticket that a passenger could not show to the inspector of security guards because her phone went dead. She had a charger, but the security guards would not allow her to charge her phone. The whole incident could have been avoided if the passenger had connected her phone and charger to a socket.
Finnish railway operator VR and Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL) require passengers to have their tickets handy even if their phone is dead. In such cases, however, the passenger can be fined but can annul the fine if the person can prove later that he or she had a valid ticket.
VR and HSL have a 5-euro charge for this service.
So what’s the issue? How about if we start from the hostile treatment that the black woman received from the security guards and the ticket inspector who ordered them to get her off the train?
“When I asked the inspector if I could charge my phone, she responded ‘no, no, no,'” she continued. “As she is checking tickets, there are two security guards behind her and she points to me, telling them that I did not have a ticket.”
The woman pleaded with the inspector and security guards to let her plug her phone into a socket but it was to no avail.
“Everything started to get violent when a drunk man by the door overhead what was happening and told the guards that I had no choice but to walk home,” she said. “I was then forced physically off the train [at Kauniainen a two-minute train ride to my final station].”
As the woman was being forced off the train, one security guard held her by the arm while the other had her in a chokehold.
“I told them that, se sattuu mua (you are hurting me), really loudly. Let me go you are hurting me!” she said. “Just as I stepped out of the train I twisted my ankle and fell on the ground scraping my knee and elbow which were now bleeding. My shoes, glasses, and phone were all scattered on the found all about me..”
The woman said that while she was being escorted off the train, a young man started to film what was happening.
“They [security guards] ordered me to leave the station but I told them that I just landed on my knee and I am in pain. How do you expect me to walk home?”
The woman still pleaded with guards asking them to allow her to charge her phone so she could board the train to her last stop two minutes away. Treating her in a demanding way, the guards ordered her to leave.
“Have a good day learn how to behave,” they said and started to escort her from the station.
Noticing that she could not walk because her knee was bleeding and in pain, the woman decided not to comply. She turned back sat on a platform bench. “How can you ask me to walk home [in this state],” she told the security guards.
Since the woman would not comply with the security guards’ orders, they called the police. They waited for two hours before the police arrived.
“When the police came, I stood up, but I noticed they weren’t interested in hearing my side of what happened,” she continued. “So I just sat and started to weep.”
The woman asked the police if the police could see that she was bleeding and hurt. The police were unresponsive. They asked her to leave the platform and station. “We don’t have any legal obligation to charge your phone,” the police responded to the woman’s plea so she could show her train ticket. “We want you to leave this platform now.”
The police gave her an ultimatum: to leave in two minutes or be taken to a detention cell at the police station.
“As the police were threatening to take me to a detention center, the young man who had recorded the whole incident spoke up.
“I have recorded everything,” he told the police. “They [the security guards] were very harsh to this woman. I cannot understand why you are threatening to detain her if she is the one who was abused [by the guards]?”
The woman told the police that they could detain her if they wished. At least she could charge her phone at the police station. The police said it was impossible to charge her phone at the police station.
In the end, the police offered a sensible option to the hurt and distraught woman by taking her home. They told her that the security guards will file charges against her for resisting.
“I didn’t resist,” she told the police. “I will file charges against them for assaulting me.”
Incredibly, all of this could have been avoided with little understanding, which goes a long way in such situations. All it would have taken was to plug the phone into a socket and allow the woman to show her ticket.
It would probably take two to three minutes at the most.
The US owner of Eskimo Pie ice cream will change the product name and marketing because it is derogatory, according to CNN. Foneri Finland, the Finnish company that makes Eskimo ice cream, is expected to follow suit.
“We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory,” Elizabell Marquez, head of marketing for parent company Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, was quoted as saying in a statement.
Foneri Finland, which produces Eskimo ice cream, said that a name change under consideration for the Finnish ice cream brand name, according to Yle.
“We have identified the issue very thoroughly and it is presently under study [to change the brand name],” said marketing manager Minna Brunberg, who added that social equality is an important value of the company.
While the term “Eskimo” was substituted for Inuit a while back, we don’t go around in Finland, calling the Sámi, “Lapps.”
It’s common respect and such old names that are the product of colonialism and racism.
White supremacy is a bully to put it lightly and does not care if you like what they may call a group. They always do so without permission because they have no respect for the group.
In Finland, we should not be surprised that the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party are the ones crying foul about the issue.
PS parliamentary group leader Ville Tavio tweeted that there are also plans in Finland to change the name of the ice-cream brand because it is derogatory.
“The green-lefts are for certain elated,” he tweeted.
Who are the most “notable” figures of Finland’s Islamophobic network in 2019? In the list below, 13 are members of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, 3 are National Coalition Party (NCP) members, 2 are Christian Democrats (KD), and three others are political “freelancers:” Marco de Wit, Junnes Lokka, and Tiina Wiik.
The list, which is far from complete, was published in the European Islamophobic Report 2019, the most comprehensive report on anti-Muslim racism in Europe.
So who are they?
Source: Eduskunta
Jussi Halla-aho: an old-timer Islamophobe convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion. Halla-aho recently said that nobody would have no reason to masturbate if there were no news about migration and asylum seekers. He aims to end Muslim immigration to Finland. He has referred to Muslims as “the dregs of society.”
Riikka Purra: An Islamophobe who commonly blames all of the country’s problems on migrants and especially Muslims. Her political career relies strongly on Islamophobia. She commonly uses the term “harmful” immigration to describe Muslims and other people of color but doesn’t understand that she is a “harmful” MP to Finland’s growth and health.
Sebastian Tynkkynen: Convicted two times for ethnic agitation, he is usually the first one to cast the Islamophobic stone at Muslim victims. Tynkkynen was one PS politician who profited from the Oulu sexual assault cases and got a ticket to parliament.
Ville Tavio: One wonders if this politician is a lawyer or not when he talks about Muslims. One of the many things he has proposed is changing the Finnish Constitution so that Finns would have greater rights over foreigners. He has a hard time accepting that everyone, irrespective of one’s background, is equal before the law.
Sources: Euroopean Parliament and Eduskunta
Laura Huhtasaari: The far-right Islamophobic rhetoric of this MEP appears to have supercharged in Brussels. Like Purra and other PS women politicians, she too sees Muslims under her bed and believes we will all be reading from the Koran soon. She commonly praises US President Donald Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Juha Mäenpää: It’s evident that this MP does not like Muslims. In 2015, he said God had answered his prayers when an asylum reception center was razed to the ground. In 2019, he got in trouble by comparing migrants to an “invasive species.” The PS politicians usually speak in code. Mäenpää meant asylum seekers and Muslims when he mentioned invasive species.
Ano Turtiainen: This politician has gained national and international notoriety for a tweet that mocked the death of George Floyd. Before the tweet, Turtiainen has published a lot of racist posts on social media.
Jari Ronkainen:Is a politician who loathes Muslims and multiculturalism. It’s no surprise that he, therefore, lobbies for tighter migration laws and faster deportations of migrants. A racist video that denigrates migrants in a video is only a part of his Islamophobic repertoire. He supported in 2018 an initiative to prohibit young girls from using veils.
Sources: City of Helsinki, Eduskunta, and the PS
Matias Turkkila: If there is a person in Finland who has facilitated and given Islamophobes a platform to voice their racism, that person is without a doubt Matias Turkkila. In a recent Tweet, he cried about Katie Hopkins’ permanent suspension from Twitter. Editor of the PS’ Suomen Uutiset and Halla-aho’s former campaign manager.
Sanna Antikainen: This MP’s Islamophobia from Outokumpu (population 6,803) resembles the town’s name, which means “strange hill.” Even if her hometown has hardly any foreigners, Antikainen is a fervent Islamophobe and supporter of US President Donald Trump. She is a trained nurse, but would she attend to Muslims or people of color if she were working at a hospital? One of her favorite lines is that Europe “isn’t the social welfare office of the world.”
Asseri Kinnunen: The PS Youth politicians is a member of the far-right and Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association. He likes to wear fascist shirts and ties of the Lapua Movement of the 1930s. Does Kinnunen house Islamophobic views? Guess.
Sources: Facebook, Eduskunta, National Coalition Party
Johannes Sipola: After the Christchurch massacre in March 2019, Sipola tweeted: “The New Zealand case show ever-convincingly that multicultural society does not work. When other people [of other backgrounds] rape and kill enough [people], it is only a question of time when there will be a reaction from the opposite side. First and foremost, everyone defends their own kind.”
Wille Rydman: For some in his party, Rydman is considered the Halla-aho of the National Coalition Party due to his Islamophobic and far-right views. He warned last year that the ethnic composition of Europe is changing due to low birth rates and that such ethnic diversity is harmful to the region.
Atte Kaleva: Selfies with Jussi Halla-aho and spreading Islamophobic soundbites is what Kaleva does in the belief they will get him elected to parliament. The good news is that such tactics haven’t worked. Like Rydman, Kaleva would be more at home in the PS. An Islamophobe populist opportunist.
Kai Mykkänen: The Oulu sexual assault cases in 2018-2019 that caused hysteria to spiral out of control in Finland, Mykkänen, who was then interior minister, lobbied for stricter laws, faster deportations, and even tests to asylum seekers to prove that they understood Finnish values. Mykkänen forgot to mention that Finnish men are also guilty of sexual assault and violence.
Sources: Eduskunta, SKE, City of Oulu
Sari Essayah: This conservative politician is a strong supporter of Israel’s settlement expansion in Palestine. Under her leadership, the Christian Democrats have moved politically closer to the PS’ and NCP’s on immigration and asylum issues. She has demonized Muslims and blamed sexual crimes on cultural factors. In one election compass, Essayah had “no opinion” whether it was the EU’s obligation to save asylum seekers from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Päivi Räsänen: This homophobic politician does not usually have kind things to say about Muslims from the Middle East unless they are Christians. As interior minister, she denied that ethnic profiling was carried out by the police even if studies proved the contrary. In January, she spread a rumor that a school in Helsinki had substituted Mohammed for Jesus Christ at a Christmas celebration party.
Marco de Witt: A loudmouth Islamophobe who desecrated the Quran in public last year. He was so obnoxious that he was kicked out of the Finland First (Suomen Kansa Ensin) political party and movement.
Junnes Lokka: A Moroccan-born Islamophobe who hates Muslims and asylum seekers. During the Oulu sexual assault cases last year, Lokka and Wiik were Katie Hopkins’ hosts in Oulu. Hopkins was recently banned permanently from Twitter because of her “hateful conduct.”
Soure: Twitter
Tiina Wiik: She hosts with Lokka Vihapuhe FM or Hate Speech FM. During these transmissions, you will hear the views of Finland’s most questionable far-right politicians and Islamophobes. The couple organizes far-right events in Finland as well.
MEP Laura Huhtasaari is a white supremacist politician from Finland. Her tweets are schizophrenic: for English readers, she has one message and for her Finnish followers another.
What would people who can’t read Finnish think about her tweets in that language? In Finnish-language tweets, Huhtasaari commonly praises US President Donald Trump, and Hungary’s strongman, Viktor Orbán.
I doubt she would publish the tweet below in English.
“There is a strange habit in the world to hate people you don’t know. For example, Trump. What bad has he done except kept his campaign promises? Does hating make you a better person?”
MP Ano [1] Turtiainen’s tweet mocking the death of George Floyd sits together with Juha Mäenpää on Facebook. You may ask why?
Mäenpää is a member of the Perussuomalaiset party* and Turtiainen was expelled. One called Muslims “an invasive species” in parliament and the other mocked in a tweet George Floyd’s death.
Turtianen, like Mäenpää, are not only bound by chains in the Facebook picture below but by their racist posts and worldview.
There is one matter that is clear about Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Juha Mäenpää: he hates Muslims so much that last year he compared them to an “an invasive species.” He is also close ideologically with Ano Turtiainen, who mocked George Floyd’s death.
According to the National Geographic, “An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area. Invasive species can cause great economic and environmental harm to the new area.”
Mäenpää, are Muslims and migrants organisms?
In the interview below with MTV, Mäenpää appears to regret the negative publicity but not what he said. He stated that in his “invasive species” speech in parliament he did not mean any ethnic or religious group.
“Immigration is one factor that affects the economy and taxes,” he said. “I plan to be critical about these matters but choose my words more carefully.”
For those who have followed how Islamophobic parties like the PS speak of Muslims and asylum seekers, will note that much of it is in code. Rarely do they use the term “Muslim” but do refer to asylum seekers, which is code for Muslims.
On Wednesday, the constitutional law committee voted 12-5 to lift MP Mäenpää’s immunity from prosecution.
Three of the committee’s PS members (Olli Immonen, Sakari Puisto, Jukka Mäkynen) and two of the National Coalition Party (Wille Rydman, Heikki Vestman) voted against the measure.
The fact that an MP can label Muslims and migrants as “invasive species” speaks volumes about how disenfranchised these groups are in Finland. For the Mäenpää affair to take a year shows how slowly justice works in this country.
One of the first to criticize the measure was PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho, who considered the constitutional law committee vote “shameful.” He said that the PS would vote against the measure in parliament.
To take away Mäenpää immunity, 167 our of 200 MPs would have to back the proposal. In theory, the PS could block the proposal with its 38 MPs.
What did other PS MPs comment about the committee vote?
MP Mauri “Perkele” Peltokangas, who appears close to exploding when giving monologue rants, slammed the decision as an example of the left-green and communist rot in parliament.
Source: Facebook
MP Sebastian Tynkkynen, who was convicted twice for ethnic agitation, wasn’t very imaginative. He stated that lifting Mäenpää’s immunity was another step in the degradation of free speech.
