The Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG) will not take any action against Helena Eronen concerning a blog entry she published in April suggesting that immigrants should start wearing armbands to help police track down suspected criminals, according to Helsingin Sanomat. While no charges will be brought against Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari’s aide, it doesn’t mean what she did was acceptable.
Mika Illman of the OPG said that Eronen’s blog entry is protected by freedom of speech laws irrespective if it insulted some national groups.
Eronen’s blog entry, which was reported by the Russian and Swedish media, forced Hirvisaari to be suspended from the PS parliamentary group for five months after he refused to sack her.
Some Finns, especially the PS, believe that it is perfectly fine to say anything they wish about immigrants and visible minorities. Apart from revealing their ignorance, it shows as well that they are seriously challenged when it comes to social graces.
Considering that certain immigrant groups in Finland are struggling to survive in a country where unemployment for non-Finns is three-times higher than the national average, one should ask how blog entries like Eronen’s help build a better society for all those that live here.
Just because no action was taken against Eronen, it doesn’t mean what she wrote was right.
Our freedom of speech laws permit us to make a horse’s ass of ourselves in public if we wish.
Night MT, all
Oh freedom of speech laws???? LOL
Then in the name of freedom of speech iam asking of President, parliament and Finns, whats their idea about Eronen’s blog entry on armbands????
what a great freedom we have in Finland? wow , i just said to police sorry sorry and then been in jail for a day and suffered for a long time, but Eronen has freedom to say such a thing????
Whats difefrent between me and Eronen???
What kind of freedom of speech is this???
Or maybe of freedom depends to our armbands???
What kind of armbands has more freedom????
Can i borrow Helena armbands for a few days for me, ha ha ah ha
This is really no surprise.
Though there is a broad consensus that Eronen’s blog entry was in appallingly poor taste, Johan Bäckman seems to be the only commentator of any substance who has suggested that it constituted ethnic agitation or any other kind of criminal offence. Has anybody else suggested this?
As a comment showing poor taste and lack of mature political judgement, the Eronen blog entry was similar to the remarks of the racist criminal Jusuf Halal-hölynpöly recommending a return to military rule in Greece.
I suspect that Johan Bäckman will run into certain practical problems if he seeks to have this case considered by the European Court of Human Rights, perhaps the most obvious of which is the need to identify a victim and an article of the Convention that has been infringed. Maybe he is thinking of persuading his Russian acquaintances to sponsor an interstate complaint, though this also seems a bit far-fetched to me. We shall have to wait and see how this develops.
It will be interesting to see whether Eronen’s boss, who is another convicted racist criminal, will try to paint this latest development as some kind of vindication of his refusal to fire Eronen in April. The gun is still loaded and pointed at his foot, and if past experience is any guide…
So it seems as though some Finns can do and say whatever they please in the name of freedom of speech huh? to me Helena was just seeking attention and popularity by demeaning vicible immigrants because she and others know that many people hate vicible immigrants, so it’s a strategy of her to attack immigrants in her blog. She’s already popular just like she planned. You can be a politcian with alot of people behind if you’re racist in Finland.