Kaikki tietävät, ettei Presidentti Sauli Niinistö ole kovin äänekäs kun puhumme rasismista, turvapaikanhakijoista ja eriarvoisuudesta. Niinistö ei myös näe, että rasismi on uhka suomalaiselle yhteiskunnalle.
Niinistö edustaa suomalaisten kaksinaismoraalia seuraavalla tavalla: yhdellä kädellä hän tuomitse rasismin mutta toisella hän ruokkii sitä
Hänen “tolkun ihmisten” ylistys on hyvä esimerkki siitä kuinka rasismia ja eriarvoisuutta ei tulisi haastaa.
”Kuulkaa, nyt tuli vastaan juttu, joka ehdottomasti pitää lukea. Se on Jyri Paretskoin kirjoitus ”Tolkun ihmiset” Iisalmen Sanomista. Kun lehti ei varmaan ihan kaikille vielä tule, niin liitän jutun tähän. (Lähde: Satakunnan Kansa)
Tolkun ihmiset kannustavat hiljaisuudella maahanmuuttovastaisuutta. Lähde. Ville Ranta.
Täsmälleen neljä vuotta myöhemmin, toimittaja Yrjö Rautio vastasi kolumnissaan napakasti ja paljasti mitä “tolkun ihminen” on:
“Ääripäistä puhuminen on vain raukkamainen tapa välttyä itse ottamasta vastuuta. Tolkun ihmisiä ovat vain ne, jotka nousevat vihaa ja pahuutta vastaan. Se on ihmisen moraalisista velvoitteista suurin.” (Lähde: Helsingin Sanomat).
Some Finnish politicians condemn racist acts with one hand but with another encourage them.
National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MEP Henna Virkkunen stated in a tweet lofty European values after an MP of the same party said Saturday that it would be easier for Kokoomus to work with the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party than with the Greens and left-wing parties.
She tweeted below: “The values that #kokoomus wants to build in Finland and Europe are education, tolerance, encouragement, caring, equal opportunities. Kokoomus wants an open, free, and internationally-minded community [and] this is distant from what the Perussuomalaiset represents.”
While her tweet is welcome, it reveals the ideological battle going in that party. One faction of Kokoomus is liberal and pro-EU while the other nationalistic, and xenophobic represented by politicians such as MP Wille Rydman, Jukka Kopra, Pia Kauma, Elina Lepomäki, Kai Mykkänen, and others.
Is Virkkunen’s tweet disingenuous?
In October, Virkkunen voted with Petri Sarvamaa, who is a member of the same party, with Laura Huhtasaari of the PS to not step-up search and rescue operations for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean.
Virkkunen is also one of the 36.3% (85/234) MEP candidates who either “strongly disagreed,” “disagreed” or were “neutral” in an Alma Media’s election compass that asked: “Is it the obligation of the EU to save all those migrants who attempt to come to Europe and who are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean?”
Virkkunen answered “disagreed.”
Is letting people drown or turning a blind tye to their fates in the Mediterranean European and Finnish values?
Over 27,000 people have drowned crossing the Mediterranean since 1993.
Migrant Tales insight: Remember 2015? It was the year when over 30,000 asylum seekers, mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan, came to Finland. Do you remember the reaction of some Finns who attacked fourteen asylum reception centers? Why weren’t these acts of violence classified as domestic terrorism?
This disgraceful story is dedicated to Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Ano Turtiainen, who is in the news for all the wrong reasons and, who, was convicted in 2018 of inciting violence against the Finnish Red Cross, which manages many asylum reception centers. The conviction has its roots in 2015 Facebook post that was liked by PS MEP Laura Huhtasaari.
The fact that fourteen asylum reception centers have been attacked in Finland since mid-September is scandalous. According to the police service of Kangasala, an asylum seeker was beaten by two or three men Saturday evening near the Kaivanto reception center, reportsYLE News.
And the news doesn’t stop here: Neo-Nazi vigilante patrols, one Perussuomalaiset (PS)* substitute MP from Kankaanpää, Juha Maenpää, stated in December that god had answered his prayers after a reception center that was supposed to house asylum seekers was razed to the ground. If an asylum seeker commits a crime there is a social media lynch mob ready 24/7.
If it is a Finn that rapes a woman the public, politicians and the media don’t appear too interested.
Double-standards and xenophobia are rife in Finland today.
In the ever-worsening anti-immigration atmosphere, some politicians and the government are even showing some understanding to the hostility against asylum seekers, which has spread and affected all migrants and minorities living in this country. Interior Minister Petteri Orpo blamed asylum seekers on YLEfor these attacks by stating that is would calm matters down by tightening immigration policy even more.
You may be asking why the National Coalition Party and Center Party aren’t even raising a finger against the PS’ obsession against immigrants and asylum seekers. These two parties need the support of the PS to streamline the welfare state. In return, the PS can tighten immigration policy and thereby appease their racist voters.
Like in all the attacks against the reception centers this fall and early winter, only one suspect was caught in Kouvola (24.9.2015), a middle-aged man was charged and given a one-year prison sentence.
How big will this disgraceful list grow below?
Attacks against asylum reception centers in Finland
“The inhabitants of Juva are quiet about [MP] Ano Turtianen.* It is a sign that there is a lot of shame.”
A Juva resident
THIS POST WAS UPDATED
Juva in the region of Etelä-Savo is a sad example of how a town withers demographically and what types of politicians appear and are supposed to save it from itself.
Etelä-Savo, like Juva, is graying, and rapidly. The population of the region plummeted by 18.2% to 142,380 inhabitants in 2019 from 174,237 in 1990. Thirty percent of the region’s inhabitants are over 65 years old, with Juva having 32%.
In the face of the region’s and Juva’s demographic challenges, voters don’t support people who want effective solutions but body-building politicians like Ano Turtiainen [1] of the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.
Turtiainen is no “lawmaker” per se but one who breaks the law.
Source: Facebook.
In 2018, he was convicted of inciting violence against the Finnish Red Cross, which manages many asylum reception centers. The conviction has its roots in 2015.
In that year, asylum reception centers were attacked by white Finns. In 2015, a record number of asylum seekers, especially from Iraq and Afghanistan, came to Finland.
In an interview with Mikkeli-based daily Länsi-Savo, Turtainen boasted after he took away his appeal that the conviction was “a feather in his cap.”
In the year that Turtiainen posted and incited people to attack the Finnish Red Cross, there were fourteen asylum reception centers that were attacked in Finland in 2015.
During that year, over 30,000 asylum seekers came to Finland.
Nature is helping in keeping population growth in check. #ebola #Africa he stated on Facebook in June 2019.
The latest incident involving Turtiainen for slamming police Chief inspector Jari Taponen a “castrated wimp” for telling him that freedom of expression carries responsibilities.
Taponen has filed defamation charges against Turtiainen.
Another one of PS MP Turtiainen’s “famous” Facebook posts. He writes: “It came from painful constipation for swallowing the Greens in government…it was a great relief to see a bucketful of shit…
[1] Ano is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. The translation of “ano” in Spanish is anus.
The vandalism that took place on Sunday against the Turku Synagogue did not come as a surprise, said Harry Serlo, a spokesperson of the Jewish Community of Turku.
“What happened is a general trend [in Finland] and should be seen in such a light,” he said. “I don’t like to talk just about anti-Semitism but how all minorities are targets of such hatred [these days].”
Serlo said he was especially happy with President Sauli Niinistö’s reaction and condemnation of what occurred.
The spokesperson of the Jewish Community of Turku said that the best way to counter anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred against minorities is not only political leadership but respect for diversity, which should be taught at an early stage at schools.
“This is a long process [to root out hatred] and will take a very long time before matters start to change for the better,” he said.
The Turku Synagogue was built in 1912 and is one of two synagogues in Finland today. The size of the Jewish community of Finland numbers over a thousand members.
National Coalition Party chairperson Petteri Orpo tweets that “I condemn the vandalism against the Turku Synagog and I’m satisfied that the Turku city council signed a motion [condemning] what happened.”
Orpo’s support is important, but the question that arises from what happened is if there are different scales of importance when it comes to vandalism motivated by hate.
When the Resalat Shia mosque in Eastern Helsinki was in March when it was vandalized with hate graffiti a day before the Christchurch mosque shootings, no politician expressed outrage.
Petteri Orpo tweets:“I condemn the vandalism against the Turku Synagog and I’m satisfied that the Turku city council signed a motion [condemning] what happened.”
This is a sad example of political hypocrisy even if both cases are equally alarming.
On the left is the Turku Synagogue and on the right, the Resalat Shia Mosque in Eastern Helsinki. Sources: Yle and Facebook.
Another matter that does not seem right in Orpo’s condemnation is his anti-immigration track record when he was interior minister and later finance minister.
Below are some of the questionable matters that Orpo and the previous government (2015-2019) of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä “had to be reviewed” in the face of an “unseen wave” of asylum seekers that came in 2015:
Free legal representation restricted to applicants who required exceptional grounds for assistance;
Deadline for appeals was lowered from 30 to 21 days after a second rejection and to 14 days after the third rejection;
The government tightened appeal times in the hope of ejecting asylum seekers faster from Finland;
There were further administrative restrictions and practical difficulties making the application process more complicated;
Tightened family reunification laws;
No time limit on detaining families with children in immigration removal centers like Joutseno and Metsälä;
Lack of government leadership in tackling Islamophobia and racism contributed to Finland’s hostile environment affecting migrants and inhumane immigration policy.
Finnish politicians like Orpo condemn racist acts with one hand but with another encourage them.
Finland has had, for a long time, an “r” problem in the way of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and other social ills like hatred against the Romany minority. Part of it has to do with the historical acceptance and even closet glorification of our alliance with Nazi Germany.
The photograph below of Marshall Carl Mannerheim and Heinrich Himmler toasting to a glass of schnapps, at the height of Operation Reinhard to commit mass murder to wipe the Jews off the face of Europe.
You may ask people about this shameful picture and if it is ok to be on the wall of Mikkeli Klubi in Mikkeli. “It’s history,” the majority would respond and thereby washing their hands of such genocide.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Turku Synagogue saw its walls vandalized with red paint, according to Yle News.
Is it a cultural thing or is that some of us have witnessed racism and the oppression from it directly? It seems that every time a Finnish politician speaks about “rising racism” he attempts to be diplomatic and kind.
President Sauli Niinistö was asked to comment on what happened in Turku. Writes Yle News: “[N]iinistö characterized the incident at Turku Synagogue as very disturbing. He said the vandalism was an indication of broader racism, saying that the growth of racism and anti-Semitism was worrying and that their developments were linked.”
Niinistö said that the growth of racism and anti-Semitism “was worrying” and what happened in Turku “very disturbing.”
The term “worrying” should, in my opinion, be replaced with alarming taking into account the present situation spearheaded by an Islamophobic party on the warpath against migrants and minorities.
A respectful question to President Niinistö: What have you done to challenge this “worrying” and “very disturbing” news?
President Niinistö, like any other politician in Finland, is part of the racism problem in Finland. It is, unfortunately, done through denial and watered-down reactions.
The good news is that President Niinistö appears to be waking up as he warned in his New Year’s speech about the dangers of hate speech.
Racism is like a rabid dog on a short leash. The racist shows of his dog and other racists are amazed. But a warning: The dog can bite back and hard because the sick dog knows no master.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is a party that is spinning out of control, and it is self-inflicted: Ethnonationalism, fear-mongering about white Finns becoming a minority, glorifying fascism, attacking researchers and other institutions, tweets about defecation and eating feces.
The PS leadership wants us to believe that there is no connection between them and rising Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, hate speech and attacks on our institutions. The party rose with hatred in its throat, sanctimony in its message, and hatred for migrants and minorities like Muslims on its tongue.
Welcome to the PS’ style of doing politics. Frame and attack people who oppose you and blame everything on migrants.
Finland, the country with the best education in the world, produces Frankenstein politicians who can only utter words filled with hate and fantasies of Nazi Germany.
In the same way, the slaughter and mass murder of the Jews and other minorities began in Germany in the 1930s, the PS has politicians who label asylum seekers and Muslims as “invasive species.”
And let’s not forget the Holocaust deniers like Jussi Halla-aho, who plays down such mass murder in a 2004 quote:
“Retroactively opposing the Holocaust is nicer and easier than getting involved in solving present-day problems. It is nice to accuse the Germans because cosi fan tutti. Armenians are irrelevant, because Armenians don’t own Hollywood and the American media.”
The PS has steered further to the far right under the leadership of Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion.
If the PS ever got its way and did away with hate-speech laws in Finland as it wishes, it would lead to a free-for-all turkey shoot where the victims are migrants and minorities.
Using racism to gain more votes and power is a double-edged sword. It is like a rapid dog that can bite back as Anders Breivik did in Norway, murdering 77 victims.
There is another danger: Greed and hatred will fuel internal fighting and bickering.
Even if the PS has a nose around its neck, it is important that we deal with this menace or succumb to its fascist ways.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you the Soldiers of Odin, a far-right group with close ties with neo-Nazis. When they appeared, the media seemed to be amazed and swept off its feet, while the police played down the problem, just like the previous government did.
Just like in the Oulu sexual assault cases, the police asked white Finns to avoid contact with foreigners (see below). Even so, the most surprising matter is how the police played down the real threat: far-right vigilante gangs like the Soldiers of Odin.
Detective Chief Inspector Markku Tuominen is quoted as warning Finns to avoid taking routes that are risky. He states: “If a foreigner attempts to make close contact with you, you should leave rapidly and, if needed, call the emergency response center. It would be advisable to save the 112 number as a shortcut number on your phone. You should not begin talking with a foreigner because he may get the wrong signal.” Source: Helsingin Sanomat.
Apart from Tuominen’s example, the police in Häme, which welcomed Asikkala-Turva vigilante gang despite some of its members have criminal records.
The police service of Häme is an unfortunate, disappointing example of how biased the Finnish police service is when it welcomed Asikkala-Turva’s vigilante gang activity even though one of its members has a criminal record. Criticized by then-Interior Minister Petteri Orpo for being too lenient, according to Helsingin Sanomat.
Soldiers of Odin founder Mika Ranta, who promises to pay 1,000 euros to anyone who knock a woman’s teeth down her throat. Source: Twitter.
National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen didn’t shine either in the face of these far-right groups. He stated in 2016 that vigilante gangs are fine as long as they didn’t break the law. “It’s a positive matter that [Finnish] citizens [note: not migrants] are interested in their neighborhood’s security and take part and debate in such matters,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat.
Apart from having a reputation for one of the best education systems in the world, Finland has the dubious honor of exporting far-right ideology.
The Anti-Defamation League warned about the presence of the vigilante gang in the United States.
It says in a statement: “Moreover, Soldiers of Odin USA is attracting adherents from both of the two largest segments of the American extreme right—white supremacists and the antigovernment extremist “Patriot” movement—and may be the most significant coalition of such extremists in the U.S. since the early 1990s.”
The Soldiers of Odin are a group that glorifies violence and Nazi ideology. In Migrant Tales, we have written a number of stories exposing their violent ideology like taking over a border checkpoint in Tornio.
“Part of the problem seems to lie with Finnish politicians who truly believe that having a dialogue – any dialogue, regardless of who is on the opposite side of the table – is better than having no dialogue at all. So you can easily end up with the equivalent of a businessman trying to reach an agreement with Al Capone.”
Talking to the likes of Jussi Halla-aho and his political cronies, who have built their careers on racism won’t work because those who try will be exploited and crushed.
And why should I talk to a racist? A racist is a racist who is set on his idea. The racist has to make the first move and renounce his hateful ideology.
PS MP Juha Mäenpää is the latest example of an Islamophobic politician who is afraid to stand by what he said in June, when he compared during a session of parliament asylum seekers, who are mostly Muslim, as an “invasive species.”
Mäenpää hates Muslims. He is the same person who in 2015 said that god had answered his prayers when an asylum reception center, which going to be used to house refugees, was razed to the ground. Mäenpää is a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association as well.
Juha Mäenpää is an Islamophobe who is member of a Nazi-spirited association, Suomen Sisu. Source: Yle News.
After over a half a year, Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen announced Thursdaythat she plans to charge Mäenpää for ethnic agitation. This may be better said than done since for an MP to be charged, it requires the approval of five-sixths of parliament, or of 167 out of 200 MPs.
The PS, which has said that they will vote against such a proposal, has 39 MPs, which would be enough to force the proposal to be voted down.
The defiant attitude of Mäenpää was clearly seen when the police questioned him. He refused to answer some of the police questions and stated that it wasn’t his fault for how people interpret what he said.
What a bully! What a coward! Chicken!
Should we be surprised by Mäenpää’s reaction to the ethnic agitation charges? Not at all. Those who bully and use their power to push around others are usually cowards when challenged.
Calling Muslim asylum seekers an “invasive species” is 1930 déjà vu, when the Nazi regime victimized and systematically murdered Jews and other minorities.
Andrew Stroehlein is a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch.Entrance to the Auschwitz death camp where it mockingly reads: “Work will set you free.” On January 27,1945 the camp was liberated. Photo: Enrique Tessieri.
