The European Islamophobia Report (EIR) will publish in early June its findings. Should we be surprised that the party that is associated with Islamophobia in Finland is none other than the Perusuomalaiset (PS)*?
The forthcoming European Islamophobia Report 2019, which will be published in early June, lists the central figures in Finland’s Islamophobia network. In 2018 there were:
Racism and Islamophobia are such a problem in Finland that these two social ills have become a major political force in the last decade. Concerning the rise of anti-Islam racism, YouGov published one of these studies in 2015, which was reinforced by a PEW Research Center study in 2018.
Both studies showed that Finland had the most negative attitudes of the EU countries surveyed against minorities. In YouGov’s findings, negative attitudes extended to the Romany minority, black people, gays, and Jews. In the PEW study, 62% of religiously unaffiliated and 67% of church-attending Christians considered Islam to be incompatible with Finnish culture and values.
Another disturbing fact that exposes Islamophobia in Finland is hate crime statistics, which showed in 2018 that of all national groups, the Iraqis faced the highest frequency of hate crime due to national and ethnic origin. As in previous years, the highest amount of hate crimes (86.8% in 2018) were due to ethnic and/or national origin.
Further proof of Finland’s anti-Muslim sentiment is the emergence of the PS as a significant political force.
In the 2011 parliamentary election, the number of seats won by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party soared to 39 from 5 previously. That was followed by good showings in 2015 (38 seats), and in 2019 (38 seats).
Of all the parties during the past decade, only the PS have had the greatest success. A great part of this success is attributable to their racist anti-Islam message shrowded in suspicion.
The PS has tried to deliver to its campaign promises voters with its exclusive and racist policies but this has run into problems with the Finnish constitution.
If the PS had its way, it would ditch as well as international agreements like the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Below are the political trademark of the PS:
- As seen in the previous government, many of its plans to tighten immigration laws were in conflict with the Constitution (Section §6) since migrants would not be equal before the law;
- Some of these were in conflict with Section §9 of the Constitution since the party aimed to restrict the free movement of migrants in Finland and Europe;
- It wants Finland to pull out of international agreements that would take away the rights of a person to apply for asylum;
- It wants to do away with the rights in the UN Human Rights Declaration;
- Its political message especially target Somalis, Muslims, Africans, and other people of color;
- It would allow citizenship to be revoked and extend citizenship residence requirements from 5 to 10 years;
- It supports assimilation or one-way adaption policies for migrants and minorities;
- It aims to perpetuate an inhumane family reunification policy;
- It believes that cultural diversity, or multiculturalism, as an ideal that should be abandoned;
- It wants affirmative action revoked;
- It wants to abolish laws that protect minorities from hate speech;
- It supports and wants to strengthen white Finnish privilege.
