QUOTE OF THE DAY: Racism and social umbrellas

Posted on by Migrant Tales

“Racism is like rain. You cannot stop rain but you can protect yourself from it. We need social umbrellas to protect ourselves from racism. This would come in the form of awareness, social policy, and leadership.”

Le racisme existera toujours. Le racisme est comme la pluie. Vous ne pouvez pas arrêter la pluie, mais vous pouvez vous en protéger. Nous avons besoin de parapluies sociaux pour nous protéger du racisme. Cela viendrait sous la forme de sensibilisation, de politique sociale et de leadership. 

Ghyslain Vedeux*

Source: Facebook.
* Ghyslain Vedeux is an anti-racism activist working for Le Cran, France’s biggest black association in France. Vedeux was a professional football player (1998-2006) and played for teams such as Tottenham. He holds a postgraduate degree in psychology and works as a consultant for individuals and companies.   

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Undocumented migrant: “I can never leave Finland. That’s a scary thought.”

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When we imagine an undocumented migrant in Finland, we usually picture an Iraqi or Afghan asylum seeker. But what about if that undocumented migrant is an over-sixty-year-old white pensioner from North America?

Finland’s strict immigration laws, especially those tightened in 2016, have been at the center of growing questions and concern about their enforcement.

A group of researchers from Turku University, Åbo Akademi, and the Ombudsman for Equality, who published their findings last week, concluded that the rights and protection of asylum seekers in Finland had deteriorated significantly.

Finnish immigration law does not consider grandparents as part of the nuclear family. The pensioner in the picture is not related to Sheryl.

While the conclusions of this study shouldn’t surprise anyone, the number of undocumented migrants should. In April 2016, parliament voted in favor of scrapping residence permits on humanitarian grounds. Before scrapping the law, Finland’s undocumented migrant population grew from a few hundred to thousands.

One of the many criticisms of Finland’s tight immigration policy is that it doesn’t recognize grandparents as part of the nuclear family.

A few years ago, there were two high-profile cases in the Finnish media involving grandmothers. The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) had tried to deport unsuccessfully three times a Russian citizen, Irina Antonova, who had suffered a stroke in Finland while visiting her daughter. Egyptian grandmother Eveline Fadayel was granted a residence permit after a lengthy battle with Migri officials.

Being white and undocumented

Sheryl*, who first moved to Finland to be with her daughter and grandchildren over ten years ago, admits that she can never leave Finland because she is an undocumented migrant. “I can never leave Finland,” she admitted. “That’s a scary thought.”

She said she was supposed to leave the country earlier this year, but decided to remain and become an undocumented migrant.

“I have nowhere to return to [in North America],” she continued. “My family and my life are in Finland.”

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Does data harvesting occur in Finland? Is there a connection beween the PS’ 2011 and Donald Trump’s election of 2016?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In the face of the growing scandal about harvesting our personal data by groups like Cambridge Analytica and others, there is a question that needs investigating and answering: Did the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, particularly Matias Turkkila and his hate-site Hommaforum gang, use the same tactics to give the PS its historic victory in 2011?

The fact that nobody has carried an in-depth investigation if the there was collusion raises a lot of questions.

 

 

Data harvesting in Finnish elections? Russian trolls at work? We need to know. Visit website at the center of the data harvesting scandal here.

The fact we have no answers on how the Internet was used to give the anti-immigration populist and the far-right an ever-louder voice in Finland, reveals a lot about the problem and our state of denial and political naïvety. We need answers.

We don’t appear to care or still have a clue reveal that our Nordic welfare values and sense of fairness – if it ever existed – could fall from grace in the same way as when the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 after 74 years of existence.

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Asylum seeker who is married to a Finn expecting his child is released from Joutseno immigration removal center after 49 days

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: Finland locks up all kinds of people in immigration removal centers in Helsinki’s Metsäaä and Joutseno like women, men, children and whole families, even asylum seekers who have married Finns. 

This asylum seeker was detained by the police on February 2 and released Friday, March 23, or a total of 49 days!

And for what reason was he kept at the notorious Jourseno immigration removal center? For searching for a better life, fleeing war and strife, and marrying a Finn and waiting to become a father?

Migrant Tales published in early March a story about the plight of this man.

This story will be updated.

In Joutseno, located 20km north of the southeastern Finnish city of Lappeenranta, is Finland’s second immigration removal center after Helsinki’s Metsälä. It is a place where Finland even locks up families with children and where suicides happen.

Finland does this because it sees immigration as a threat. This fact is the basis of the country’s oppressive immigration policy, especially towards asylum seekers.

Cases of human tragedy abound at Joutseno irrespective of sex, age, national origin, and marital status.

Below, is a picture of a minor looking out the window at the Joutseno immigration removal center.

Read the full story here.

One of these asylum seekers is an Iraqi who has been locked up since February 2.

Like many of his countrymen, he too came to Finland in 2015. Contrary to other asylum seekers at Joutseno, he is married to a Finnish woman who is expecting a child.

A view of the Joutseno immigration removal center yard from his cell. Photo by the asylum seeker.

The asylum seeker’s problems with the Finnish immigration authorities started in February 2017.* After they detained him in Pori during that month, they sent him to Turku. The police said that even if he was married to a Finn, it wouldn’t be grounds to stop the deportation.

 

After being detained in Turku and the Metsälä immigration removal center for 10 days later, the police detained him again in February and sent to the Joutseno immigration removal center.

“They said they had to lock me up because they suspected I’d to another country,” he said. “I asked them [the polce] where I would go. I should go to my wife who is pregnant.”

According to the asylum seeker, his Finnish wife pleaded with the authorities “crying and begging them,” but it was to no avail.

* Not July 2016 as originally reported.

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My name is Raghad Mchawh and I’m from Syria

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: I met Raghad Mchawh last year in Mikkeli. Her goal is to be a journalist. We know that such a journey is a long one but we have to take the first step. 

We are honored that that first step is with Migrant Tales.

We hope to see many of her stories in this blog community and wish her luck in her new life in Finland.

Raghad Mchawh

My name is raghad, I’m from Syria.  I’m 18 years old and I’m 10 years older than the war that rages in my country. 

My dreams are also bigger than this war. The war didn’t kill my dream of becoming a journalist.

I had dreamed before to go to Turkey, to finish high school there, I have achieved my dream.

A young woman like me who has a passion for learning, with her power will overcome the obstacles that war creates.

Also I’ve dreamed of entering the best universities to receive a good education. I did not expect these universities would be in Finland.

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Facebook Imran Adan: Whiten your skin, it will help you find work in Finland

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Migrant Tales insight: There is no racism in Finland, right? A black person gets stopped in Tampere by a white 50-year-old who thinks he has so much privilege that he can insult a black man, Imran Adan, in a racist way. 

“A man stopped me that for no reason and started to ask why I am in Finland and what I do here,” he said. “Before I could answer him and in near-shock, he said that if I’m not working and not in school, I must be living off social welfare.”

The man gave him advice and told me to whiten my skin if I wanted to get a job. 

While such a statement would shock anyone, Adan said that a black man who was watching the conversation told him that he should take the white Finns advice because it would help him get a job.

“I’ve been whitening my skin,” said the black person who had been living in Finland for a year. 

For those who don’t know Adan, he works at Tampere University as a coordinator and was a former research assistant. 

“The last thing I will ever do is whiten my skin,” he said. “This skin color has remained with me for generations and there is no reason for me to whiten it. I will never change my identity.”

 

Read the original post here.

 

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica and stories about emails that “destruct in two hours”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: Alexander Nix is the suspended CEO of Cambridge Analytica, the hybrid war company that is at the heart of the Facebook data breach scandal.   

Nix makes himself look like a fool in the video below filmed by undercover journalists. He gives us the impression of impunity and of secure emails called ProtonEmail that are supposed to self-destruct shortly after they are sent (see 16:17 min). Little does he know that the video recording his words will not self-destruct but force his career and company to destruct instead.  

“So that you send them [emails], and after they’ve been read, two hours later they disappear.”

Twitter: UNICEF criticizes Finland over the detention of asylum-seeker children

Posted on by Migrant Tales

UNICEF rebukes Finland over its treatment of asylum-seeking minors, according to YLE News. Human rights activists like Zuzeeko Tegha Abeng have lobbied Finland to stop detaining children in 2013.

He wrote:

“According to Amnesty International, children should be in day care centres, schools or skateparks – not in police detention. Finland detains thousands of people yearly, including people who have fled persecution, war or poverty. They are held in prison-like conditions, although guilty of no crime.”

Kimmo Neihum tweets close to four years later the same problem:

Read the full story here.

Migrant Tales published in April 2017 this harrowing story about an Iraqi family being detained at the Joutseno immigration removal center.

An Iraqi child looking from the window of her cell in April 2017.

Finland, the country that boasts on being a Nordic nation that promotes social equality and has one of the best education systems in the world, has a dark side.

The detention and deportation of children must stop.

 

 

 

 

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY: You first have to break society to remold it into your vision

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: This quote by Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, gives us a glimpse of how the alt-right uses social media platforms like Facebook to manipulate voters. If I had to choose a party that is in the same league as Steve Banon and the hard right, without question it would be the Perussuomalaiset* and its leader Jussi Halla-aho. They have aimed to polarize and break Finnish society to remold it into their deranged vision.  

The Perussuomalaiset aren’t the only ones. There are a lot of politicians in parties like the National Coalition Party that want to break existing Finnish society. 

This appears in an interview in The Guardian of London: 

“If you want to fundamentally change society you first have to break it. It’s only when you break it is when you can remold the pieces to your vision of a new society. This was the weapon that Steve Bannon wanted to use to fight his culture wars.”

Read the full story and watch the video here.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.