Enrique Archives - Page 13 of 152

How tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat reinforce our prejudices against immigrants and refugees

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat have a lot to learn about fairness, which is the cornerstone of all good news reporting. But tabloids aren’t interested in fairness but in sensationalism. A story by Ilta-Sanomat is headlined: ”Two Somalis use [fake] Yemeni passports to travel to Finland.”

Even if the story suggests that these Somalis are committing a crime because they travel with false passports, there is much more to the case than meets the eye. If the reporters would have bothered to read a related story on 4 News in the UK, the angle of their story would have probably been different.

According to 4 News, hundreds of asylum seekers who used false passports to travel to the UK in the past ten years were abused and wrongly convicted. As a result, the court of appeal quashed the convictions of five victims because they were denied a justifiable defense of the charge.

None of the lawyers told one of the victims like “Jonathan,” who appears on the program, any chance of defending himself. The lawyers advised Jonathan to plead guilty to the charges, which landed him a conviction and a six-month prison sentence.

Apart from having a criminal record, which worsened his chances of finding employment, he was denied for seven years the right to see his wife and child in the U.S. His conviction denied him a visa.

Go here to see the 4 News report.

Read full story here.

Migrant Tales has published numerous Ilta-Sanomat’s racist billboard ads from the 1990s, when Finland’s foreign population started to grow rapidly.

Here’s a tabloid ad from 1992 where then MP Liisa Kulhia wants to put the Russian mafia and Somalis in their places.

The Finnish media reports near-constantly stories that reinforce intolerance of certain ethnic groups. But what can you expect if they don’t know better? If they don’t know better, any self-respecting reporter would get the facts right and rely as less as possible on his prejudices.

Anssi Honkanen’s and Renne Korppila’s Aamupoika radio program on NRJ, one of Finland’s most popular private radio stations, is one recent example of how hostility and intolerance of immigrants is promoted in Finland. The radio commentators claimed that there was a direct link to between crime rates/human trafficking and the Bulgarian and Romanian Roma who come to Finland to beg.

I sent an email to the program challenging their urban tales but never got a reply from either Honkanen or Korppila never mind NRJ.

I wonder if NRJ paid any attention to an official police report in mid-July that Roma beggars aren’t victims of human trafficking or linked to organized crime?

As long as people like Honkanen and Korppila can get away with such racist statements, very little can change.

Will anti-immigration rhetoric boost the PS in the upcoming Finnish elections?

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Two important questions arise in light of the upcoming Euro MP and parliamentary elections in Finland in 2014 and 2015, respectively: How many parties will use immigration as an election issue, and will the next two elections reveal the ugly face of intolerance of other political parties in Finland?

If we look at the United Kingdom, there are clear signs that the Conservatives are using the anti-immigration message to boost their standing in the polls.

If the Tories have been able to gain on Labor and Ukip thanks to their anti-immigration message, will political parties jump on the same bandwagon as elections near?

We saw clearly how intolerance made its way into Finnish politics especially since 2008. As the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) were becoming a political sensation, the reaction of other parties was shameful to say the least. Instead of challenging the PS’ anti-EU and anti-immigration message, they approved it with their silence and patronizing.

We all remember SDP chairwoman Jutta Urplilainen’s infamous maassa maan tavalla (in Rome do as the Romans do) statement and National Coalition Party head Jyrki Katainen’s affirmation, “debating immigrant issues didn’t make you a racist.”

Even today, Urpilainen’s statement is still used with gusto by some Finns. Some teachers use it to justify their ignorance and their own discriminatory behavior against other ethnic groups.

Politicians and the media must learn to lead and not cave in to pernicious ideologies that promote intolerance. We must look further than 2014 and 2015 if we want to keep Finland a successful society based on social equality for all.

PS chairman Timo Soini has claimed that the April 2011 historic election victory was mainly due to anti-EU and to a lesser degree on anti-immigration sentiment. The affirmation, in my opinion, is a good example of how racism is defended and protected in Finland.

Our intolerance is like having a gun hidden under our pillow. We can use it whenever we need to but we won’t tell anyone that we have such a firearm hidden in our bed.

There are already some clear signs that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is investing in the anti-immigration campaign message to lure voters. Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo of the PS “demanded” right after she was elected as the party’s new secretary that Finland should tighten immigration policy.

If the anti-immigration message picks up in the next two years, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, the biggest loser will be Finland.

Our society will not only lose demographically, but economically, socially and politically as well. Anti-immigration means being anti-foreign. Being anti-foreign in a globalized world is like shooting oneself in the leg and curing your wound with populist mumbo jumbo incantations.

It is like putting a noose around our necks as a society.

Death threats and the PS threat to our Nordic way of life

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman, Timo Soini, reveals in a recent blog that he got four death threats recently. Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen’s Christian Democratic party received a bomb threat as well, which was reported by tabloid Iltalehti. The death threats are similar to what Swedish-language journalists received a while back. Migrant Tales has been a victim of death threats as well.

The question that we should ask in light of the latter is what these threats say about Finland and where we’re heading today as a country.

One matter it says loud and clearly is that our response to intolerance is far from satisfactory. Those that fuel ethnic hatred, racism and make it their business to polarize society between “us” and “them,” believe opportunistically that hate speech can be their political servant.

How wrong they are! Mass murderer Anders Breivik of Norway is one recent example of how you cannot keep xenophobia and racism on a short leash because it can bite back at its owner, and hard.

Ali Esbati, a survivor of 22/7,* when Breivik murdered 77 innocent victims on his Islamophobic rampage in Norway in 2011, was quoted as saying on The Local, which cites an op-ed on Aftonbladet, that Norway had learned little from the massacre. He claimed that the “undergrowth of hateful rhetoric” had recovered from the attacks by Breivik.

Read story here.

While anti-immigration parties in the Nordic region suffered election losses due to Breivik, the approval rating of the anti-immigration Progress Party (FrP) of Norway has swelled today to 20% in the polls.

An editorial on Oulu-based daily Kaleva writes about the death threats against Soini.

”Hate speech has been raging for a long time, and there are among Perussuomalaiset MPs people who have been sentenced for ethnic agitation. From the mouthes of the Perussuomalaiset we’ve read uncensored text that is written off as humor.

Death threats show that the hate speech can travel the other way. The party’s figurehead Soini is the victim of such a situation.”

To use a recent example of how the PS fuels hatred in Finland, one of its MPs, James Hirvisaari, published on Facebook the wonderful time he spent with Seppo Lehto, a far right agitator who was imprisoned for inciting ethnic hatred.

On the same weekend, he said in a tweet that a reporter working for tabloid Iltalehti ”masturbated wildly” when he was interviewed by him on the phone.

Add to the latter the near-constant hate speech against gays, elites, immigrants, and groups like Muslims from parties like the PS and a broader worrisome picture emerges of the problem.

Intolerance breeds more intolerance until it snaps like on 22/7 or turns into something more sinister like Germany 1933.

*I was surprised to see The Local use 22/7 to describe the mass murders that took place in Norway in 2011. Using a date for a tragedy is a way to honor and respect the victims.

When will the PS sack MP James Hirvisaari?

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Recent tweets and Facebook comments by Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari reveal how racism, fascism and right-wing populism have spread like a cancer in Finnish society. Hirvisaari now praises Seppo Lehto and claims the ultimate far right narcissist, like him, is a nice person.

Would you praise a man who gives Nazi salutes, likes swastikas, insults immigrants and longs for the days of World War 2, when Finland was Hitler’s ally?

Seppo Lehto as he sees himself when he was a candidate. Source: tiede.fi

It’s odd that the PS hasn’t said a word about Hirvisaari tweeting on Saturday that a journalist “masturbated wildly” during a telephone interview and now his praise of an extremist clown like Lehto.

Seriously folks, would you trust a party like the PS in government? One that has MPs who insult journalists, immigrants, praises far right extremists and likes to talk about skid marks in the toilet bowls of parliament?

A party that doesn’t have the guts or is incapable of putting one of its MPs in line, or sack them if necessary for making racist and far right statements, is a party that should never be in government.

Go to Hirvisaari’s Facebook page here.

Migrant Tales (July 22, 2012): What have we learned after Norway’s 22/7

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Migrant Tales

What goes around comes around.

Exactly a year ago (2012) Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?

In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that day.

In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won a historic election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.

Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xjVD0ztWaKA

In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.

Everything changed, however, after July 22.

The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, theDanish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.

Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.

In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.

A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party. Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.

The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.

Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.

The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.

In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?

Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.

But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.

Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?

If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain: We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.

Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.

Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.

That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.

Migrant Tales (September 30, 2010): Populist chatter and a tale of elk flies

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Migrant Tales

MT comment: This is Migrant Tales’ first story on Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari published on September 30, 2010. The extremist anti-immigration politician was spreading is views back then. Like today, his pet topics were rape and far right nationalism.

____________

There is a True Finns candidate in the April 2011 elections that spreads elk flies every time he opens his mouth to bash immigrants. His multicultural name, James Hirvisaari,* gets a lot of free publicity whenever blogs like mine comment on his extremist views.

Hirvisaari has a problem: He is another True Finn that has been charged for incitement of ethnic hatred.

His campaign catchphrase is: Finnish language, Finnish spirit, Finnish nature, Finnish flag. This phrase, in my opinion, shows how low xenophobic groups in Finland have stooped. They now use our sacred icons to drive home their racist views.

Hirvisaari’s first campaign promise, I support a Finnish Finland in a European Europe, is a phrase that looks sound at first glance but after closer study it raises disturbing questions. If he is so Finnish, why is his first name, James?

His second campaign promise, I support Western and Christian values, is another kick in the groin that leaves you with a question mark: What does he mean? Yes, true, James, spreading hatred, strife and insulting other European ethnic groups are part of our Western and Christian heritage.

If you go back to the Nazi Germany era, he may have a point.

Hirvisaari states in his third campaign promise that he is for local democracy and against European federalism. I am totally confused now: Why doesn’t he speak straight and state that he wants Finland to leave the EU?

I really “love” his fourth promise. He supports a selective immigration policy but would he, seriously, hand on heart, give a residence permit to a person person like himself from another country who shared the same extremist views?

In order to simplify things, why doesn’t Hirvisaari state in plain Finnish that he loathes a certain religious group? That his whole political ideology is based on this and nothing more.

* If you want to read some funny comments about Hirvisaari’s political ideas visit Facebook. His real names is Erkki Kalevi.

PS MP James Hirvisaari claims journalist “masturbated wildly” in phone interview

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari is the best gift that anti-racists could have in this country. If there is a loose cannon in parliament, it’s Hirvisaari. The PS MP has a pretty one-track mind. When he opens his mouth, he usually talks about Muslim rapists, skid marks on toilet bowls and now his latest topic, masturbation.

Here’s a tweet on Saturday by the PS MP: “I sensed during the telephone interview that the boy journalist masturbated wildly.”

The journalist that Hirvissari refers to is Mikko Vesa of tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.

The Ilta-Sanomat journalist asked Hirvisaari about another tweet on July 14, where he suggesting that n-word kiss chocolates should be changed to baboon kisses.

Folks, this is not a prank. Hirvisaari is an adult, an MP elected by voters to represent them in the Finnish parliament.

The European Court of Human Rights turned down in July a request by Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari to review a conviction for ethnic agitation in December 2011 by the Kouvola Court of Appeals, which was upheld last year by the Finnish Supreme Court.

The PS aims to become the biggest party in the 2015 parliamentary elections.

Two Finlands will be celebrating our country’s first centennial in 2017

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Migrant Tales

When Finland celebrates its first centennial on December 6, 2017, what will we be commemorating? Independence? Our Nordic way of life? Social equality? Will there be two Finlands, one that is socially included and another one that is not, celebrating on that special day?

Source: Cornerstone News and Information.

People who aren’t socially excluded will have good reason to celebrate in 2017.

But matters will be very different for those who belong to socially excluded Finland, which comprises of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, visible minorities and the unemployed. They have dreams of a better life but many of their hopes end up at the social security institution, Kela, unemployment office or as a worker at a menial job that pays too little and which forces you to live in debt.

The problem with these two Finlands is that those that have power, the included group, want to keep things as they are. As their greed and go-go-capitalist values and self-centered lifestyles grow, so do the ills of our society.

While nobody has given this form of exclusion a proper name, it should be called white Finnish privilege. It is the same social ill that has kept minorities like blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and others oppressed and excluded in the United States and elsewhere.

White privilege uses race and ethnic background as a social filter to exclude others in order to control important resources like jobs, political, social and economic power.

Excluding part of society in such a hostile manner is expensive and costs taxpayers an arm and a leg.

One example of how intolerance has raised its head in Finland was reported by YLE, which revealed the last time Finland was able to accommodate 750 refugees in its UN annual quota system was in 2003. Opposition by municipalities to receiving refugees is one reason why Finland hasn’t been able to bring 750 refugees yearly, according to the story.

We’re not talking about thousands never mind tens of thousands of refugees but a few hundred!

One of the culprits of the present situation is the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, which campaigned in the last elections that municipalities should not accept refugees.

Just like few will admit a white Finnish privilege problem in this country, even fewer will agree that our intolerance is homemade and spoonfed at home by our parents and reinforced at our schools.

Finland did everything in the last century to limit immigration and foreign investment to the country. Imagine what kinds of attitudes and prejudices you must teach new generation of Finns to have maintained such a Draconian system.

Only after 1995, when Finland became an independent country, matters started to change for the better.

We have made progress but in 2017 there will be two Finlands celebrating our first centennial.

Finland’s anti-immigration sentiment surprised a lot of people

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Finland is a country that is graying at a rapid pace and needs to bring skilled labor. Some parties, like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), believe that immigration especially from outside the EU should be stopped at all costs. Others don’t mind as long as immigrants bring skills and contribute to society by paying taxes.

In the face of these two opposing views, Finland is on a collision course.

Whatever opinions you may have on immigration and cultural diversity, the fact is that our population is aging at a fast pace.

According to Statistics Finland, the number of pensioners will rise from the present 17% (905,000 persons who are older than 65 years) to 27% by 2040 and 29% (1.79 million) by 2060. Better medicare will fuel this trend. Persons over 85 years in Finland will rise from 2% (108,000) to 7% (463,000).

One of the interesting matters that few speak of these days is how wrong forecasts got it. They may have estimated correctly population growth and age structure, but never in their wildest days did they expect so much opposition to immigration. So much so, in fact, that we saw the rise of an anti-immigration and anti-EU party in 2011, the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which gained 39 seats in parliament versus 5 in 2007.

In the spring of 2008, a survey by the ministry of finance revealed that Finland would need almost two million immigrants by 2020 to plug the labor shortage caused by our aging population.

The Ministry of the Interior saw back then the economically active population would decline by 189,000 in 2009-20.

”In order for increasing immigration to compensate for [the] workforce leaving the market, Finland would require some 300,000 immigrants between 2009 and 2020,” said Tarja Rantala, chief inspector for the immigration department of the ministry of interior.

Even if Statistics Finland estimated in May 2007 that the immigrant population will almost double nationally by 2025 to 300,000, its clear that their forecast was too conservative. A new report by the official statistics agency published in February 2013 now sees the immigrant population of Helsinki and surroundings to rise to around 300,000 by 2030.

Certainly the latter two estimates by the ministry of finance and ministry of the interior were made when PS chairman Timo Soini led a party of five MPs.

It is unfortunate that Europe is being overtaken today by ever-growing populist anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment. The present situation will prove costly for countries like Finland, which need to attract more skilled labor to the country and adapt to their ever-culturally diverse societies.

In many respects, the present situation is Finland’s doing. During most of its time as an independent country it had systematically restricted as much as possible foreign investment and immigration to the country. We are now paying a high price because of that policy.

As long as the PS continues to cast a strong populist anti-immigration and anti-EU shadow in Finnish politics, and as long as politicians lack the courage to challenge it in earnest, Finland’s immigration policy will never serve it the way it should.

http://www.migranttales.net/finlands-challenge-in-the-new-decade/

Is Finland’s interior minister promoting a country built on equal treatment and equal opportunity?

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Päivi Räsänen is in charge of the interior ministry that makes the following mission statement on its website: “Finland will be the safest country in Europe – a country built on equal treatment and equal opportunity.”

Fine, agreed.

How does Räsänen further the equal treatment of immigrants, gays and visible minorities when she speaks so lowly of them.

Her exclusive statements reveal her fondness for the 1950s or many decades before that. Back then, Christian values were in vogue: You were an outcast if you were gay; racism was part of Finnish life and never questioned; Romanies were all crooks; women served men; and the only real Finn was a white Finn.

The Christian Democrat politician is the cordial mask of intolerance that wears a suit and tie. It is a deception, however. Behind those cordial words is a lifetime of social exclusion without a drop of empathy for anyone who doesn’t fit the interior minister’s narrow Christian world.

Räsänen has come under fire for a number of reasons, from claiming that homosexuality is an illness to suggesting that people have the right to oppose laws that are against the Bible.

She is the antithesis of the modern Nordic democratic state. She has no empathy for immigrants, pregnant mothers who have been raped, gays and other minorities.

In my opinion, the interior ministry’s mission statement actually says the following: “Finland will be the safest country in Europe for white Finns – a country built on equal treatment and equal opportunity for white Christian Finns.”

Go to website here.

Disagree? Read on:

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