In a clear victory without visible consequences, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has asked that Finnish authorities to cite reasons for the closure of the Finnish-Russian border. The request is significant considering that the ECHR rejects about 90% of complaints seeking answers from state authroities.
In the face of the ECHR decision, Finland appears to be on a war footing with its Russian neighbor even if President Alexander Stubb said recently that Finns should prepapre for better political relations with Moscow.
Despite such a mesage, the government sends mixed messages by announcing that the country plans to quit a global convention banning anti-personnel landmines and boost defense spending to at least 3% of GDP by 2029, according to CNN.
One of the problems of the so-called pushback law, which allows Finnish border guards to deny their human right to seek asylum, is its credibility. In order to pitch the law to other MPs and the public, Interioir Minister Mari Rantanan of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, is the claim that “thousands” of asylum seekers are waiting to cross the border and claim asylum.
Without offering any proof, Rantanen has accused Russia on steering asylum seekers to the border to increase pressure on EU as we have seen at the Belarus-Lithuainian, – Latvian and -Polisih border.
The nine plantiffs cite in the compaint to the ECHR how their human rights have been breached. Some of them have families in Russia, whom they cannot visit, antother plantiff said that he cannot receive a Russian pension made more difficult by the sanction against Russian banks.
Alexander Union, an association that represents Russian speakeres in Finland, is one of the plantiffs that lodged the complaint to the ECHR.
“In Alexander Unions’ view, [the pushback] law 482/2024, which has been in force since 22 July 2024, breaches the Finnish constitution and the country’s international obligations. The aim of the law has been to achieve a compromise between Finland’s sovereignty and human rights. Contrary to what is stated in the main body of the law, these people’s right to freedom of movement and family relations is now being violated for a period of 15 months.”
Interioir Minister Rantanen has said that she wants the pushback law to remain in force until the end of 2026.
Some ask why the hundreds of people seeking asylum at the Finnish-Russian border are such a threat to national security if 32,360 asylum seekers mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan came to Finland in 2015 and recently tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war. Could it be that the majority of asylum seekers at the Finnish-Russian border come from Muslim-majority countries?
Since 1 August 2023 to 29 January 2024, a total of 1,271 persons sought asylum at the border with
well over 90% coming from Muslim-majority countries. Most of these asylum seekers came from Syria (491 people), Somalia (360), Yemen (120), and Iraq (57).
Teivo Teivainen, a professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki and quoted by the European Islamophobia Report 2023, believes that apart from the anti-Muslim politics of the PS, other matters are at play. “Another factor is Russia’s instrumentalization of refugees but also Finland’s [historic] suspicion of Russia,” he said.
