If there is something to reinforce from the Southern Ostrobothnia district court ruling of the Fares Al-Abaidi case, it is the following: In some cases, the police and the courts play down racist crime. The sentence was a miscarriage of justice.
Al-Abaidi has appealed the ruling.
Why is the ruling a travesty?
Because racism is a toxic component of Finland’s police and justice system.
Imagine scores of people attacked Al-Abaidi in June 2020, but only one person was convicted for assault. Racism was not a motive for what happened.
The Iraqi youth’s case is an example of hair-splitting and a miscarriage of justice.
If the authorities are to be believed, racism was not what motivated the attack. The vandalized car that had mamu (a racist term for migrant) sprayed on its side does not prove anything because they never found the suspect.
No racist motive spells no hate crime, full stop.
The Finnish criminal code does not mention the term hate crime but can grant stiffer sentences for a crime if it is motivated by ethnic origin, among other background traits.
Suspicious hate crime cases reported by Migrant Tales that saw partial justice:
1. Black February (2012)
2. Rashid H. (2018)
3. Keyse Abdifatah Maalesh (2021)
4. Ziad of Jämsänkoski (2021)
5. Fares Al-Abaidi (2022)
There are a number of cases that Migrant Tales has reported and wondered why the police did not see racism as a motive.
An incredible excuses I received from the police was Rashid H’s case was that the police officer “knew” suspects weren’t racists.
Rashid H. was brutally attacked by three youths who violently stabbed him about 30 times and attacked him with weapons like an axe.
In light of what we know, the Al-Abaidi case is a travesty.
While it is surprising that only one person was fined and convicted in Al-Abaidi’s case, he should prepare – like Musta Barbaari’s six-year struggle for justice – for a long battle before seeing justice.