Category: Enrique

The fear that the Somali community in Finland faces is real

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I made a call to a Somali friend over the  weekend who told me about a rumor that a young nineteen-year-old countryman had been killed in Helsinki over the weekend. While we could not confirm if the story was true and hope that it is only a rumor it does show the fear that some Somalis live under in this country. 

The Somalis are no small community in Finland. In 2010-11 they were a 6,593-strong community, the fourth-largest in this country, after the Estonians, Russians and Swedes.

Since the Somalis came to Finland as refugees in the early 1990s, very little has been done never mind accomplished to further the acceptance of this community in Finland. The interest of some politicians in the Somalis has been purely for political purposes and the lack of interest of their plight by the media have led to the present unfortunate state of affairs.

Migrant Tales asked almost a year ago if Finland was a safe place to live for non-whites.  If we take a group like the Somalis, there is a big question mark. Moreover, if we put into context the violent deaths that three Muslims faced in a span of about three weeks this year the question mark becomes an even bigger one.

Despite the fears expressed by Muslims and Somalis in Finland, it is unacceptable that the police service has not apparently done enough to assure some visible immigrants that it is safe to walk the streets of a big city like Helsinki and surroundings.  A statement made by a policeman in charge of the death of a Somali youth in Espoo is a case in point in shoddy public relations. He blamed the Somalis for spreading racial hatred with their rumors.

Twenty-five years in the journalism business have taught me that rumors only arise when the message by a government institution or a company is poorly executed or unclear.

We should ask the policeman who blamed the Somalis for spreading rumors if his statement does anything to reassure the Somali community that they have nothing to fear and that the police serves them in the same way as white Finns?

The fear that some Somalis fear in Finland is real. This has been pointed out by a EU study.

“I have become very paranoid in Finland,” said a Somali native, who has lived most of his life in this country. “When the Perussuomalaiset won the election [last year] things got as bad as they did in the early 1990s, when we heard almost every two weeks of some attack against us…In the end of the 1990s things started to get better.”

“I don’t like to go out [these days] because I fear that a complete stranger could attack me,” he continued.  “I am very paranoid.”

YLE poll: The Perussuomalaiset party suffers a new blow in the polls

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The many problems of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party worsened today after a poll published by YLE showed the popularity of the party further slipping by 1.7 percentage points to 14.1%. The biggest party was Kokoomus (22.6%), followed by the Social Democrats (up 1.8% to 19.1%) and the Center Party (16.4%).

The plunge in the polls is quite significant, taking into account that the PS’ popularity once stood as high as 23%. The party won 19.1% of the votes in last year’s election.

Without a doubt it’s been a scandal-rich year for the major tabloids, thanks to the numerous PS racist gaffes, foot-in-mouth displays, declarations of wars against immigrants and the media, members joining neo-Nazi parties, satirically suggesting Holocaust-style armbands to help police in ethnic profiling, decorating cold-blooded killers and recent internal bickering.

In the meantime keep your seatbelts fastened. This is only the first year and we still have three more to go. What kind of a country will Finland look like after four years of the PS in Parliament? Will we recognize it? How much damage will be done to the credibility of our institutions, never mind our international image?

The people who lifted the PS from a minor to a major party last year are now sending it back to where it came from.  There is no sympathy from the major parties, never mind the media, which has grown some teeth after initially treating the PS as some kind of sensation before the election.

Migrant Tales has constantly warned about the PS and the damage it is capable of inflicting on Finland.  Our editorial line, and the fact that we got it right, explain why our blog has seen unprecedented growth in the past year.

Migrant Tales wrote shortly after the election:  “Another factor that spurred the PS to new heights was a watershed statement in March 2010 by Kokoomus chairman Jyrki Katainen, who stated that being critical and debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist. After that green light to racism was given, the Social Democratic leadership gave the PS another pat on the back with their infamous saying, maassa maan tavalla.”

Supporting the PS is not just being anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-establishment but supporting a party that aims to change Finland into something that it isn’t quite sure of.  Some PS MPs want to take it back to the 1950s while others are fascinated by the fascism that mushroomed in the 1930s.

There is no room for dissent in the narrow-minded world of the PS.  All you have to do is repeat patronizingly after every other word fatherland, fatherland and fatherland.

Like Migrant Tales, Sweden got it right a year ago.

Immediately after the PS election victory the New York Times wrote: “In the European news media, particularly in Sweden, the True Finns have come under fire as right-wing racists. Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and others have defended Mr. Soini from such accusations, though other members of his party hold more radical views on immigration.”

Even Social Democrat Lasse Lehtinen tried to assure Europeans that they have nothing to fear. “Timo Soini is actually a very civilized guy,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “He reads a lot. He thinks a lot.”

If the leaders of the major parties and the majority of Finns had been visible immigrants for a day before the election, then they would have seen Soini and the threat of the PS much more clearly, as they do today.

Finland’s police service: see no, hear no, speak no hate crimes

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales reported since the end of January some gruesome violent crimes against Muslims in Finland with the most recent one happening Wednesday. Two of these led directly to the violent deaths of a Somali and Moroccan native, both Finnish citizens.  None of these were hate crimes, according to the police. 

What is a hate crime and why do some visible immigrants disagree flatly with the police’s conclusions?

A Police College of Finland report states the following:  “The traditional definition of hate crime also entails the notion that there is no prior relationship between the offender and the victim. Hate motivation is easier to understand in connection with crimes committed by extremist groups; i.e. in instances where the suspect and victim do not know each other and the suspect’s agenda is to harm the victim on the basis of his or her membership of a specific [ethnic]group.”

And continues: “This traditional definition, however,  is not suitable for describing all crimes committed against minorities that include prejudice against a group. Crimes or harassment can also occur between people who already know one another, and such acts are not always based on one particular hate motivation.”

One matter that sheds a dubious light on the Finnish police is their claim that hate crimes fell  by 15% to 860 cases in 2010 compared with the previous year.

While we don’t have the competence nor the resources like the police to investigate a hate crime, we are members of the community that the police serves.

Even so, the ever-growing discrepancies between some immigrant and visible minority groups versus the police show a distressing trend: lack of credibility.  This can never be a good matter for the police never mind the immigrant community because the effectiveness of the police service hinges on trust.

Trust in the police service can be hindered by many factors. One of these can be the immigrant, who may came from a country where the police are more feared than criminals. In light of this fact the police in Finland must do more work to win over the trust of these groups.

A recent statement by a policeman investigating the death of the adolescent in Espoo show that credibility between the police and the Somali community are significant to say the least.

Instead of reassuring the Somali community that Finland’s streets are safe and that the police are out there to protect them, the police investigator blamed the Somalis for planting racial hatred by spreading false rumors about the murder, according to YLE.

Alan Bruce wrote recently (26.2.2012) on Migrant Tales the following:   ” For far too long many police services have been reactive and cut off from the needs of all they are supposed to serve – through inertia, sloppy standards, poor levels of training or [as in the stated findings of the Macpherson Commission in London] sheer ‘institutional racism.’”

Bruce continued: ” Tackling these problems by a radical program of training, policy and pro-active engagement with [and support for] immigrant communities, ethnic minorities, migrants, women and other minorities is not just protecting the rights of citizens [and non-citizens] but it is also about creating a professional police service that sets standards and proclaims values.”

The tragic deaths and attacks that we have witnessed so far this year should be a wakeup call.  In the present political climate in Finland, matters will unfortunately get worse before they improve.

The police must stop treating crimes against immigrants as routine matters.

Why is the Perussuomalaiset party riling mad at the Finnish media?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

You know that there is something wrong whenever a group, never mind a major political party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), start accusing the media for their problems. This is exactly what Matti Putkonen and MP Jussi Halla-aho did Wednesday on  YLE, when they blamed the media for treating the PS unfairly compared with other parties.

This view was contested by Risto Uimonen, chairman of the Council for Mass Media in Finland and a guest on the show. He said that since the election, when the PS became the third-largest party in Finland, it’s only natural that it has come under greater media scrutiny.

Even though Putkonen, who was convicted of rape in the early 1990s, vows to restore the PS’ good name in the media, it’s pretty clear that any such attempt will end up in failure before it leaves the drawing board.

If we look closely at what Putkonen and Halla-aho said, it’s clear that the party is pretty much in the dark about the watchdog role of the media.  Statements by them and PS MP James Hirvisaari, who has called the media “bloodthirsty hyenas,”  should instead sound alarm bells.

I am certain that if these PS politicians had their way, they’d be the first to curtail press freedom in order that the media would write what they wanted. Putkonen said in a letter to journalists that the media should “serve the fatherland when writing the news.”

Does “serving the fatherland” mean distorting the news and self-censorship when reporting on the PS?

If the PS were fair and had a drop of self-criticism, they’d understand that much of the so-called negative coverage of the party is self-inflicted. Have they forgotten PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, sacked PS councilman Tommi Rautio, Ulla Pyysalo, Helena Eronen, Freddy Van Wonterghem and a long, long list of others?

Sad but true. Every month, sometimes every week, we are questionably entertained by some scandal that hits the front pages of the tabloids.

The ignorance and contempt that some PS members have for the media and for freedom of expression in Finland can be seen as well how the party addresses other issue like immigration and cultural diversity.

In their amateurishness and populist anti-democratic wishful thinking, they seek to rewrite history and move the goalposts of  society to fit their intolerant world.

The media is the best insurance that such a thing will never happen.

 

Update: Older woman assaulted at Myllypuro metro station in Helsinki

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Thanks to a tip off, Migrant Tales correctly reported that the  older woman who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by a group of white Finns, at Myllypuro metro station in Helsinki on Wednesday was a Somali. The woman suffered injuries to the face and was taken to hospital by ambulance.

These types of attacks, now apparently made by young men on older women, are an indication of the violence that some immigrants suffer in Finland.

Migrant Tales earlier reported three deaths of Muslims over a span of about three weeks. A Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman, Tommi Rautio, boasted on Facebook that he would decorate the white Finnish male who killed the third victim and seriously wounded another before taking his own life in a pizzeria in Oulu.

Migrant Tales believes that attacks of the kind seen in Helsinki are the tip of the iceberg, even though the police reported that hate crimes had fallen by 15% in 2010 compared with the previous year.

The low number of reported hate crimes could be interpreted as a vote of little to no confidence in the police from certain immigrant groups.

Migrant Tales moves to http://migranttales.net on May 17

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Migrant Tales

I almost fell off my seat when I saw this message on my screen on March 29. The first thought that raced through my mind was that five years of hard work had come to an end. To ensure that nothing similar ever happens to Migrant Tales again, we will be moving to another domain (http://migranttales.net/) during May 15-19.

We  have seen unprecedented growth in traffic this year thanks to our readers. Our aim is a very simple one:  “…to be a voice for those whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public.”

Thank you for your support!

Migrant Tales’ was deactivated for about 13 hours on March 29-30. Some of our enemies were prematurely dancing and celebrating over our grave. To their surprise we were back the following day.

PS anti-immigration wing: “a new [Cadillac] model every year”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Helena Eronen, the parliamentary aide who suggested armbands for foreigners, is what Malcolm X once said about racism and Cadillacs:  “They make a new model every year.”* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s far-right anti-immigration wing led by MP Jussi Halla-aho have a new model: Helena Eronen.

Hirvisaari was fined in December for hate speech, which explains why he chose Eronen as his aide to write and be his ideological alter ego.

Taking into account the outright rejection by the media especially after the election of the Counter-Jihadist writings of Halla-aho, Olli Immonen and Juho Eerola, it’s pretty clear that this group needs a fresh new face, and a new writing style to get across the same anti-immigration message. That person is none other than Eronen.

Even if Eronen claims no political affiliation, she used to advertise her affiliation to the far-right Muutos2011 on her Uusi Suomi blog. Many of her blog entries confirm her anti-immigration views, such as the last one published in Uusi Suomi and headlined, “What on Earth would you do about exotic- [skin-] colored rapists.”

Hirvisaari shines through in the text, and Eronen also mentions MP Olli Immonen, who inquired in Parliament about rapes committed by immigrants.

Eronen fails to share one absolute figure with the reader about how many rape cases have occurred. This is for obvious reasons, because we are talking about tens of cases and not discussing the white Finnish males who commit the lion’s share of rapes in Finland.

At the end of her blog entry she warns that two dailies, Turun Sanomat and Karjalainen of Joensuu, may not quote the text unless they want to pay a 100,000-euro fine. This shows how little Eronen understands and her utter ignorance of the media. It’s a pretty ludicrous warning: how can you write a public blog and forbid someone from quoting you?

We mustn’t forget that PS MPs Hirvisaari, Halla-aho and Immonen – and Eerola herself – are all social media creations.

Noting how much their racist writings and victimization of certain immigrant groups brought them money and a ticket to Parliament, it’s clear that they will not abandon social media as a platform for getting their anti-immigration message across to their followers.

*Thank you Sasu Xinkang Ölander.

Older woman assaulted at Myllypuro metro station in Helsinki

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

An older woman was attacked on Wednesday at Helsinki’s Myllypuro metro station, according to Metro’s April 26th edition.While the story does not state the ethnic background of the woman, Migrant Tales understands that the victim may be a Somali.

The woman, who suffered injuries to the face, was taken to hospital by ambulance.

The attacker, believed to be a young male, is still at large.

The police are expecting to determine the man’s identity by today.

Anti-immigration sentiment in Finland hinges in great part on the PS

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The atmosphere for some immigrants in Finland has been an ever-worsening slippery slope. First the historic victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party last year and then the near-constant racist gaffes and foot-in-the-mouth shows.  

If you want to know what the PS stands on certain issues you have to watch for the but… in their sound bites. We are against racism but… We are against ethnic profiling but… We are for immigration but… We are for gender equality but…

It’s pretty clear that as long as an anti-immigration party like the PS remains the third-largest in parliament, matters will continue to worsen before they improve.

The PS are not only a threat to immigrants and visible minorities in this country, they are a tragedy for Finland. No matter from which angle at the situation, building a country on the populist ideology of the PS, which hinges on hatred, suspicion, racism and prejudice of other groups can never bring any type of prosperity to our country.

A story published by YLE Wednesday reinforced some disturbing news we already knew about immigrant youths. It states that immigrant youths have a five-time higher chance of being marginalized than Finnish- and Swedish-speakers.

It’s fair to say that the ongoing anti-immigration climate in Finland, thanks in part to the PS and to the economic situation, nothing far-reaching will be done to correct this situation.

The matter that causes youths and adults to be marginalized from society is a complex issue. Even so, the main culprit lies in between our ears.

Too many politicians, policy-makers, the public and even immigrants are content with the present untenable status quo. We agree on one matter and that is not to rock the boat.

It’s wishful thinking as well to believe that the integration and acceptance of immigrants and visible minorities in Finland will be easily solved by offering more Finnish-language course. It is a long process that will take generations and a lot of work from both sides. There are no easy fixes.

The role of mutual acceptance and respect are crucial if we aim to build a healthy and dynamic society in this century. At this moment there is too little of those important qualities.

The only way for Finland to shake off the present political nightmare and blow away those adverse anti-immigration winds blowing over our society is at the ballot box.

Fortunately time flies.

 

Aamulehti rape story: Minister Räsänen speaks out in favor of tougher sentences

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The Aamulehti story that was published Wednesday, claiming incorrectly that 34% of all rapes are committed by foreigners, has Christian Democrat Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen now demanding in Iltalehti tougher rape sentences.  Nowhere in the Iltalehti story does Räsänen mention numbers. The only thing we can read in the story is that one third of all rapes are committed by foreigners.

The far-right anti-immigration wing of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is attempting to get political mileage from the story. Helena Eronen, the assistant to PS MP James Hirvisaari who created quite a stir when she suggested armbands for foreigners, wrote in her Uusi Suomi blog about the matter.

Nowhere in her blog entry does she mention volumes.

Earlier today Migrant Tales got in touch with Hannu Niemi at the Justice Ministry, who said that as a rule of thumb, around 50% of all rapes by foreigners in Finland are committed by tourists. The rest are committed by permanent residents.

Let’s look at the rape statistics. Over the period from 2006 to 2009 24% — not 34% as claimed by Aamulehti — of rape sentences were given to foreigners. Technically this means that 12% (around 62 out of a total of 262 total cases) of all sentenced rapes in Finland were committed by immigrants who live here.

Aamulehti calculated only one type of rape case in its story. If we use all three types, then they average to 24%.

What is even more revealing are the 2010 and 2011 figures, which show suspected rape cases totalling 141 (foreigners accounted for 27.5% of the total)  and 109 (26%), respectively. If the majority of these cases are dropped and around half of them concern immigrants, then we are speaking of a really small number that is not big enough to start victimizing whole groups.

An honest question: Is this a story? Is it such a big story that Interior Minister Räsänen must come out publicly and add more fuel to the fire of racism in this country or stir the storm in the teacup further?

Räsänen does throw a bone to the immigrant community by asking people not to label all foreigners as a result of the statistics: “But we should not underestimate the problem; the majority of foreigners are well-behaved.”

This story by Aamulehti is a a good example of how immigrants are victimized in Finland.

When I read stories like these it not only makes me feel ashamed of my Finnish background but of some of my colleagues who are sloppy and eager for attention.