Migrant Tales comment: Today’s news that Parliament’s constitutional committee voted against the Sámi Parliament Act is a big blow to Europe’s only indigenous group. The parties that voted against the act were the Center Party, National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), and the radical-right Perussuomalaiset.*
I wrote in the forthcoming European Islamophobia Report 2022 the following: “Another big test for Prime Minister [Sanna] Marin is the Sámi Parliament Act, which the Centre Party has relentlessly opposed. The long-overdue act will give Europe’s only indigenous group the right to self-determination as envisaged in the ILO Convention 169 (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989). Opposition to the act reminds other minorities, like Muslims, how Finland views different minorities and their rights.”
