In 2010, when Otava Folk High School, located 14 km from Mikkeli, started offering halal meat on a regular weekly basis to its Muslim students, it became one of the first, if not the first, learning institutions to offer such meat to students. All of this, however, came to an abrupt end when the principal, Harri Jokinen, discontinued the service a few years later.
Jokinen blamed cost-cutting for the decision.
Päivi Ruhanen, who was a cook at the school’s cafeteria, stated that the primary motivation for serving halal meat to Muslim students was to provide them with a source of protein, which is an essential component of their diet.
When asked if preparing halal meat dishes caused more work for the cafeteria staff, she said that it did.
“Yes, it does,” Ruhanen was quoted as saying in the school publication Otavan Sanomat, “because it has to be done separately. However, we also want to offer healthy food for those who follow special diets.”
Considering that Islam is the second-biggest religion in Finland offering halal meat is still an exception in Finland. Even if cities like Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo, Tampere and Turku have a large number of people who don’t speak Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue, all five cities take special dietary requirements into account (allergies, vegetarian/vegan food). However, none of them offer at their schools halal meat on a regular basis.
Thanks to migration, Finland’s demographic makeup has changed. In Helsinki alone, the number of pupils in 2024 who have another mother tongue other than Finnish, Swedish, and Sami, has risen to 25.7% of the city’s population from 13.5% ten years ago. Such demographic changes have placed new challenges and a rethink on comprehensive schools and education in general.
For Suaad Onniselkä, a deputy principal of Helsinki’s Puistopolku Comprehsnvie School, the challenge is is not merely a logistical issue—it’s a matter of equity and dignity. She believes that Finnish schools, while striving for neutrality, often overlook how structural and cultural biases shape the experiences of minority students.
Onniselkä describes the holy month of Ramadan as one of the clearest moments when Islamophobia appears in schools.
“In some extreme cases, pupils are forced to eat while fasting,” she said. “Even if poverty is an issue in some homes and food may be scarce, some schools are especially worried that a Muslim student might die during one month of the year. Forcing a pupil to eat doesn’t belong anywhere.”
There have even been cases in smaller cities, where social workers have suggested reporting fasting families to child protection authorities.
The Finnish Muslim Forum (Suomen Muslimifoorumi) has repeatedly emphasized that fasting during Ramadan is a matter of religious freedom, not neglect.
“Yet, no one [at school] even says ‘Happy Ramadan’ to me,” Onniselkä noted. “Then they talk in a negative tone. But I’m the principal of the school—and I feel bad about it. How does that young student feel? How much time and energy would it take for a teacher to simply say, ‘Hey, happy Ramadan, it’s wonderful that this special time has begun?’ That’s what amazes me.”
According to Onniselkä, prejudice in schools often manifests in subtle ways: through low expectations, stereotypes, or lack of representation.
“You can either ‘other’ or empower,” she said. “Too many pupils are victims of prejudice at school. The question is whether teachers see the student on their own terms—or through the lens of the majority culture.”
Finland’s national curriculum allows teaching pupils’ mother tongues and religions, but qualified teachers of Islam remain in short supply.
“In many schools, non-Muslim teachers are hired to teach Islam,” she explained. The main textbook, Salam by Sirkku Aboulfaouz and published by the Finnish National Agency for Education, does not address Islamophobia directly. “It’s up to the teacher to bring up the topic, even though many students experience it daily.”
Structural racism and the “gang” narrative
Onniselkä also connects Islamophobia to broader social anxieties, including recent societal and political debates on youth “gangs” and urban safety.
“I think the political parties like Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, the police, and even the press have taken advantage of this,” said Onniselkä. “They all win—except for the [labelled] young people involved. Teachers’ fears make the situation seem much worse than it really is.”
The so-called gang problem, she argued, has its roots in structural racism and stereotyping rather than in real organized violence.
“In the 2000s, white Finnish students would tattoo their postal code numbers—like ‘94’ for th eastern Helsinki nighborhood of Kontula—and no one called it gang behavior. Now, if a Muslim or if a student of so-called migrant background does the same, it’ becomes a ‘gang issue.’ That double standard speaks volumes.”
Onniselkä is also concerned about ethnic profiling by police, which she says is “quite commonplace” in some Helsinki neighborhoods.
“Students are stopped, photographed, and asked for ID,” she said. “Yes, there are human rights violations happening. And yet, police receive little or no anti-racism training.”
Anti-racism education
In her view, Finland lacks genuine anti-racism education.
“The fact that we get a 90-minute anti-racism course once every five years is basically a joke,” she said. “It should be systematic and part of every school’s equality plan.”
Onniselkä also challenges Finland’s narrow interpretation of equality.
“Equality doesn’t mean treating everyone the same,” she argued. “It means giving each student what they need to succeed. The new legislation on learning support recognizes this for academic needs—but not for cultural or linguistic ones.”
Structural racism also extends to teacher recruitment, according to her.
Social Welfare Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen, who said recently that she would ban children from using the niqaba and burka at school, blamed poor integration of foreigners into the labor market for high unemployment and welfare levels.
Even if Grahn-Laasonen places the blame on foreigners for not finding work, we should treat her words with tweezers and suspicion. She is not interested in foreigners getting work, should be seen as just another way for the government to punish migrants and minoirities.
“In other words,” she was quoted as saying in MTV, “we need to improve integration so that immigrants can find employment as quickly as possible and also have access to education. For example, the long periods of childcare allowance could be shortened, and we have two reforms underway in my department related to this.”
Social Welfare Minister Sanni Grahn-laasonen. How can a politician like GrahnLaasonen look after th migrants’ best interests if she wants to ban children from using the niqab and burka at school and shorten childcare allowance? Source: MTV.
When tightening immigration policy, ministers like Grahn-Laasonen turn to other Nordic countries.
“For example, the long periods of childcare allowance could be shortened, and we have two changes in the law underway in my department related to this: the preparation of integration support,” she continued. “[One of the changes] is the reform of childcare allowance based on the Norwegian model. which requires three years of residence to receive childcare allowance. The aim is to get immigrant mothers into work and, on the other hand, to get children into early childhood education to learn the language and get the best possible start to their school career.”
One of the challenges to these types of reforms is if they are constitutional.
The shame and contempt that the government of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo through their Perussuomalaiset (PS)* partners is iincomprehensible if you are a sensible-minded person. The PS was, is and will continue to be a racist party where its toxicity level varies. But mark my words: racism is its fuel and raison d’être, reason for being.
One of the most toxic decisions of the PS and the government has been to extend citizenship period from five to eight years, and now disqualifying people who are forced to live off welfare. The final step is to implement a citizenship test, which most Finns won’t pass.
Writes Helsinki Times: “The revised legislation, adopted by 103 votes to 58, forms the second stage of the government’s broader reform of the Citizenship Act. The main objective is to require applicants to demonstrate financial self-sufficiency through employment or business income, excluding most forms of public support.”
Some, like Nikki Obernik, saw the new phase of the citizenship act as a hostile phase.
The biggest problem with Finland’s tightening of migration policy swims in racism and aims to exclude and oppress foreigners. The laws, like the citizenship act, send out a clear message: We don’t trust you, we do not give you the benefit of the doubt, LEAVE unless you leave your identity and rights at the door!
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is waging a hostile Islamophobic campaign to boost their low standings in opinion polls. The party is confident that the job will be done by increasing attacks on the migrant and minority community. That is the reason you hear and read PS politicians bashing migrants to divert attention from their disastrous economic policies.
One of these PS politicians is Wille Rydman whose shameful writing exposes the lie behind the story.
He claims in a column in a community paper, which the mainstream media would most likely never publish, that the far-right Great Replacement Theory is a perfect term to describe what is happening in Finland.
“All this is happening completely openly and largely as a result of political decisions. There is no conspiracy, nor is one needed. The end result is a Finland that is becoming less and less Finnish. A country that is rapidly being populated by people who are anything but Finnish,” he claimed.
So what’s wrong with the statement? For one, he is talking about foreigners taking over Finland and that white Finns will become a minority, a typical Great Replacement Theory conspiracy theory that has led in 2019 to the mass killing of Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand.
When you read the writings of people like Rydman, they forget to mention that following matters:
Think of it. Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, publishes a story if the country’s deportation. system is broken. For the story, the daily uses as sources well-known xenophobie Joakim Vigelius of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, Social Democrat MP Eveliina Heinäluoma, who has a wishy-washy stance on migrants, and National Coalition Party MP Heikki Vestman, who justified as chairperson of the constitutional committee the shelving of Finland’s human rights obligations on the passage of the pushback law.
The migration debate in Finland seems very much like the lack of pushback against President Donald Trump by republican legislators. In Finland, we consider migrants, especially Muslim asylum seekers as a threat. We do not give such people the benefit of doubt.
The article is highly revealing exposing what Helsingin Sanomat thinks of undocumented migrants which it slaps on the “illegal” label.
Vigelius, who like Vestman to trash international agreements, said that the present asylum system is based on “outdated” international human rights conventions and that these should change.
‘It cannot be right that even after ten years and ten rejected applications, an asylum seeker is still residing in Finland,” he pointed out.
Apart from using MPs who would care less about undocumented migrants, a big shortfall of the article is that is does not care to mention the suffering present laws cause on such people. Migrant Tales has documented many such cases.
The Ulysses Syndrome is a chronic disorder and helps understand the trauma suffered by undocumented migrants.
If you want to see the face of Finland’s Islamophobic network, it is not dificult to find. The Perussuomalaiset party (PS)* continues to be one of the most important platforms of Finland’s Islamophobic network. All of the elected 46 MPs (out of a total of 216) of the Perussuomalaiset party based their campaign on anti-Muslim and xenophobic themes.
Moreover, all of these people in Finland’s Islamophobic network are waging a menacing culture war to impose their political will against the foundations of Finland’s social welfare state. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are waging such a war to destroy the EU.
PS ministers like Riikka Purra (Finance), Mari Rantanen (Interior), Wille Rydman (former Economic Affairs), Leena Meri (Justice), Ville Tavio (Foreign Trade), and Jussi Halla-aho (Speaker of Parliament) have all spread the Great Replacement theory with little to no consequences.
The list is even longer since we have not mentioned Joakim Vigelius, Matias Turkkila, Miko Bergbom, Teemu Keskisarja, Pekka Aitakumpu, Sanna Antikainen, Ari Koponen, Mauri Peltokangas, Jari Ronkainen, Saara Seppänen, Jaana Strandman, Simo Grönroos and many, many others. Is it a coincidence that all of the above are members of the PS? Oops! I forgot to mention Minister of Social Security Sanni Grahn-Laasonen of the National Coalition Party who suggested that wearing the niqab and burka at school should be prohibited.
Tavio and the government have gone as far as to link development aid to accepting deportees. MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen, who has three ethnic agitation convictions, and MP Kaisa Garedew both want Islam to be banned in Finland. Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 of ethnic agitation and of breaching the sanctity of religion, pressed charges against a comedian and deputy Helsinki councilor for calling him “a fascist.”
National Coalition Party (NCP) MPs like Atte Kaleva and Seida Sohrabi, an NCP politician, among others, use familiar anti-Muslim talking points. A strong supporter of Israel’s war policies in Gaza, Kaleva argues that Islam doesn’t need whitewashing because it is: “militant and intolerant.” Sohrabi has strongly advocated the banning of the veil, niqab, and burka, among other Muslim practices like children fasting at school during Ramadan.
Kuinka monta kuvaa olet nähnyt tummaihoisesta henkilöstä tai hijabia käyttävästä naisesta lastenvaunujen kanssa mediassa? Näitä kuvia toistetaan vuodesta toiseen, vaikka todellisuus on monimuotoisempi.
Tällainen vinoutunut kuvasto rakentuu valkoisten suomalaisten ennakkoluuloista ja tietämättömyydestä vähemmistöjä kohtaan. Se ruokkii rasistisia käsityksiä ja ylläpitää stereotyyppistä mielikuvaa “maahanmuuttajasta.”
Toinen epämiellyttävä totuus, jonka artikkeli tuo esiin, on se, että Suomen kotouttamisohjelma on hyvä – ei epäonnistunut, kuten poliitikot usein antavat ymmärtää.
Kysymys kuuluu: Miksi käytätte jatkuvasti näitä samoja kuvia, kun kyseiset ihmiset edustavat vain noin 10 % Suomen maahanmuuttajaväestöstä?
On aika vaatia mediaa muuttamaan linjaansa. Monimuotoisuus pitää näyttää todenmukaisesti – ei yksinkertaistettujen, kliseisten kuvien kautta.aan maahanmuuttajista tarkasti.
Only one conclusion arises after listening to President Donald Trump’s rant in the United States: culture war. This war aims to not only shift political power globally, but also in Europe from the center to the hard right.
Trump said that if we do not close our borders, forget about the climate crisis, and stop buying Russian oil, “our countries are going to hell.”
Apart from European far-right Trump sympathizers like Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Italy’s Georgia Meloni, there are several other cheerleaders in Finland, mainly from the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.
Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, which many see as a turning point in EU-U.S. relations, was one where he downplayed the threat of Russia, claiming that Europe’s greatest security threat was unregulated migration and the exclusion of far-right political groups. In the face of widespread condemnation, PS Minister of Finance Riikka Purra praised Vance’s words as a great speech. “Freedom, freedom of speech, democracy; threats from within, inability to fight illegal immigration,” Purra posted on X.
If Purra’s comment was made in Spring, the latest one praising Trump came from Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio:
Writes Tavio on Facebook: “I don’t know how the mainstream media will report on this, but I listened to Trump’s speech at the UN today, and he made a lot of valid points about how open border policies are leading Europe to hell. Trump said that so-called asylum seekers are rewarding generosity with crime. European prisons are full of foreigners, who already make up more than half of the prison population in many countries. According to Trump, the migrant problem should be tackled head-on and those who do not belong in the country should be deported, but decision-makers are doing nothing because of political correctness. He also highlighted climate action as a failed scam that is impoverishing Europe and enriching China and others. Trump believed that Europeans are chasing unrealistic carbon targets and end up paying more for electricity and gasoline than others. Trump made these remarks to world leaders at the UN General Assembly, where it is unusual to hear such blunt talk that deviates from the narrative familiar to the mainstream media. What do you think? Will Europe finally take itself in hand, or will it continue to hush things up and bury its head in the sand?”
One wonders what can be done in light of this onslaught. For one, we should not give in and always place our arguments on the rule of law. Racism, for example, is against the law.
The last dictatorship (1976-83) we had in Argentina seemed invincible. Their downward spiral began when their mistaken invincibility turned against them, causing them to do foolish and terrible things.
In a desperate bid to cling on to power with the April 2027 general election approaching, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Joakim Vigelius is inciting a social media lynch mob against a residence in Tampere used to house asylum seekers. Sending a Lynch mob is not the real problem, but the little pushback by other politicians and the media.
One of the latest lynch mobs is targeted against refugee children housed at an expensive house in Tampere. Leena Piipari, Solum CEO who runs the group home, told Yle that comments on social media could be classified as hate speech and individual threats.
The minors at the home came to Finland without guardians and have been granted residence permits or temporary protection.
“Some have fled war, for example, from Ukraine,” Piipari was quoted as saying in Yle.
A view of the house that politicians like Vegelius are targetting asylum seekers, which are also chilren. Source: Yle.
The government, in which the PS is a member, can, despite the anti-racism action plan, continue to spew racism and attack migrants, even if they are minors with few if any consequences.
The latter is not the main problem, but the silence and entitlement of racist politicians to say what they please about migrants, asylum seekers, and minorities. With their mouths covered by groups like the media, a non-white Finn has no other choice but to grin and bear it.
Arttu Rintanen is a local politician from Tampere. He was outraged by the actions of Vigelius and the PS:
Writes Rintanen: “If something angers supporters of the National Coalition Party, Center Party, Social Demorats becomes public, it will not necessarily lead to death threats… The reasons are clear: the PS is the number one party with the lowest education level, the most violent, and incapable of self-control.
