How the police, National Border Guards and white Finnish institutions keep visible migrants and minorities on a short leash

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What would you say if the police, the National Border Guards, Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI), Customs, Rescue Department, and City of Helsinki health inspectors came knocking on your door on a Saturday afternoon? Such a thing happened yesterday at the Puhos shopping center of Easter Helsinki, where the majority of customers are visible migrants and minorities.

A Migrant Tales reporter, Muhammed Shire, who was at Puhos Saturday afternoon, asked one of the police why they didn’t carry out similar inspections of white Finns’ stores and stop their customers?

The police didn’t answer his question.

Even people coming out from a mosque were stopped and asked for identification.

Writes Shire in an email: “At the Rukous kerho (mosque), people can’t enter the premises or leave through the main entrance since the police carefully check everyone’s identity. At the main entrance, the police prohibited a young man from going in [the mosque] or leave and checked the person’s identity and registered it in the laptop. Other congregations in Finland don’t have to put up with these types of inspections in Finland.”

A very good question and we know the answer: Migrants, especially Muslims, are political cannon fodder for the government and a constant obsession about security marks these people and gives the police and authorities justification to get more funds.

 

The big question that emerges is if this operation by the police and other authorities is just another case of ethnic profiling.

 

The police and other officials like the Finnish Border Guards at Puhos on Saturday.  Photos by Muhammed Shire.

And why wouldn’t you believe that ethnic profiling was at play? Can we trust the police when it comes to relations with non-white Finns? Remember June when a secret Facebook page with over 2,800 members made openly racist comments about Muslims? That amounts to about one-third of Finland’s police service of 7,000, according to the Long Play scoop.

Read the full story here.

What about a year before that, in April, when the police and National Border Guard carried out spot checks on “foreign-looking” people? There’s also the Musta Barbaari case where his mother and sister were stopped by the police.

When was the last time you were stopped by the police?

Do the police ethnically profile people? I am pretty certain that you will get a candid answer from members of the Roma minority, who have lived in Finland for over 500 years.

As long as the police and other public officials continue to have obsolete and racist views of Others, the less migrants and minorities will trust the police and continue to see them as enemies.

One of the “short leashes” that officials use to keep migrants and minorities oppressed and treated like second-class citizens is ethnic profiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police and other authorities carry out identification checks at the Puhos shopping center of Eastern Helsinki

Posted on by Migrant Tales

On Saturday about 3 pm, the police, the National Border Guards, Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI), Customs, Rescue Department, and City of Helsinki health inspectors started to ask foreign-looking people for their identification in Puhos, a shopping center in Eastern Helsinki frequented by migrants. 

The big question that emerges is if this operation by the police and other authorities is just another case of ethnic profiling.

The police and other officials like the Finnish Border Guards at Puhos on Saturday.  Photos by Muhammed Shire.

“I asked a policeman [at Phos] why they are asking people for their identification and why they don’t ask those who go to shops run by white Finnish?” he queried, adding that the police said that “on a weekly basis they do these types of operations, but he wouldn’t say where.”¨

Migrant Tales will follow up on this story on Sunday.

 

Maria Lohela pats far right on the back because she is an Islamophobic populist

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Outgoing speaker of parliament and Blue Reform (formerly Perussuomalaiset)* MP, Maria Lohela, finds kind words for a far-right Turku municipal council politician called Olavi Mäenpää who died this week.

Olavi Mäenpää. Source: Facebook.
Read the original posting here.

Why would a politician like Lohela mention a politician who spreads racism and hatred of migrants and minorities?

The only answer I can find is that Lohela finds ideological solidarity with people who hate migrants and minorities.

What did she write about the late far-right city of Turku municipal politician?

“Olavi Mäenpää’s unconditional outspokeness was often puzzling, sometimes offensive. His politial message targetted people…In the same time, Mäenpää was for many locals’ and voters’ the only hope who dared to crack open and upset administration structures, old, unreasonable old good-time practices. It’s in this where he has merit. Mäenpää’s energy and insistance on detail were inexhaustible.”

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: Silence is “approval” of racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

“Silence is the first thing after hate that is dangerous…silence is not the answer, hate is not the answer.”

Holocaust survivor

If what the Holocaust survivor says is true, and there is no reason to believe that it isn’t true, there is widespread approval of racism in our society. I live in Finland, so the silence I hear is a pat on the back, support of racism.

Enrique Tessieri

Watch the full video here.

Racism is an ugly monster that can and must be slayed and banished from our society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Do you remember five years ago a brave young fourteen-year-old called Rebecka Holm? A letter to the editor about the racist harassment she regularly endured when going to school changed her life

In March 2012, the Red Cross gave her an award for her bravery on the UN Day Against Racism.

I had the honor to interview Holm. She said that silence isn’t the answer when confronting a social ill like racism.

“If somebody speaks bad about you and wants to make you feel inferior because of your background,” she said, “then we need to talk about this serious matter and hide from it.”

Racism is too ugly to hide and happens a lot in Finland.

The bravery that the then young adolescent showed has more worth than many adults and politicians together, who approve racist harassment with their silence or use it as fuel to advance their political careers.

I will try to make contact with her and see what her thoughts are on the topic today.

Finland: Retreating into a shell and fuelling xenophobia and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As Finland retreats deeper into its shell and ethnocentrism, it feeds the beast of xenophobia and racism. Apart from Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Laura Huhtasaari, who openly encourages direct violence and hatred against migrants and minorities, there are others that are just as guilty. 

Who are they?

Interior Minister Paula Risikko and former Interior Ministry official Päivi Nerg have warned us over and over how undocumented migrants threaten our security. If Risikko and Nerg told us with gusto about the threats, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government has done little to nothing to challenge such xenophobic statements.

See the full tweet here.

Volker Türk, UNHCR assistant high commissioner for refugees, said last year that labelling refugees as security threats “risks opening the door to xenophobic and racist rhetoric and can even lead to physical attacks directed against refugees.”

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Laura Huhtsaari’s “new normal” is a synonym and carte blanche for open violence and hostility against migrants and minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* presidential contender and MP, Laura Huhtasaari, claimed in her speech Sunday that populism isn’t a passing phase but will become to “new normal.” In Huhtasaari’s and the PS’ violent world that targets migrants and minorities, the MP deceives the crowd by stating this “new normal” is a good matter.

The picture below that the MP with the kindergarten teacher smile should have shown when speaking to her followers of the PS and the “new normal” should show the picture below.

Read the full story here.

While Tony Blair is a disgraced politician who led his country into the Iraqi war in 2003 by lying, his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, lacks credibility. How can you trust a former prime minister that misled his country and the Western world with then US President George W. Bush into a disastrous war?

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Please wake me up after the Finnish presidential elections are over

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finland’s presidential elections were uneventful. President Sauli Niinistö, the incumbent, comfortably won with 62.7% of the votes. He was followed By Green Party candidate Pekka Haavisto (12.4%), Laura Huhtasaari of the Perussuomalaiset Party (6.9%), Kansalaipuolue’s Paavo Väyrynen (6.2%), Center Party’s Matti Vanhanen (4.1%), Social Democrat Tuula Haatainen (3.3%), Merja Kyllönen (3.0%) and Nils Torvalds of the Swedish People’s Party (1.5%). 

Read the full story here.

While Niinistö’s election was a shoo-in, two anti-immigration and anti-EU candidates, Huhtasaari and Väyrynen, got 13% and came in third and fourth place, respectively.

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Exposing white Finnish privilege #47: President Sauli Niinistö’s “culture inside four walls”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED

Instead of showing leadership and giving a public face to our ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse non-white society, President Sauli Niinistö does the opposite again. I have said it before and I wil say it again: President Niinistö is no friend of non-white Finland. 

In an interview on YLE, Niinistö gave an Iraqi man’s example of how he thinks foreigners should practice their culture:

He said: “I read in a newspaper about an Iraqi who had lived a long time in Finland, and he said that this [his culture] isn’t any problem. When I leave home for work, go to the store, or anywhere, I behave like a Finn. In this society, [I] follow the rules of the [cultural] game. But when I come home, I have Iraqi culture – truly impressive. And together with acquaintances can practice [my culture] very well, but the starting point is that Finland’s values are respected, democracy, gender equality.”

Listen to the full Ylen Aamu TV talk show here.

President Niinistö speaks conveniently of gender equality but doesn’t mention the importance of non-discrimination.

White Finnish privilege #47

If we study a bit closer what Niinistö said, it suggests that cultural diversity has no public place in Finland. His affirmation is full of holes that expose his ignorance and prejudices of “other” cultures.

Even if Finnish public officials, politicians, and the president speak of two-way integration, it doesn’t mean that at all because it works as a one-way adaption process.

Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #47: President Sauli Niinistö’s “culture inside four walls””

President Sauli Niinistö office wants to censor the Feminist Party of Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

President Sauli Niinistö’s track record on defending Nordic values and cultural diversity (non-white society) has been a disappointment for many. He is more than ready to protect white Finnish privilege and power but rarely, if ever, the rights of asylum seekers, visible minorities, and migrants. 

The latest action comes from President Sauli Niinistö’s office which requested in the fall the head of the Feminist Party Katju Aro to retract from criticizing the president’s interpretation of the ongoing debate on migrants, minorities, and racism.

The Feminist Party chairperson said in a statement that President Niinistö isn’t serious about defending human and migrant rights in Finland when he referred to people who spoke out against racism as “one extreme.” According to Aro, this view reveals that President Niinistö doesn’t understand the context of the ongoing debate.

We at Migrant Tales couldn’t agree more with Aro’s analysis.

Read the full statement (in Finnish) here.

While Niinistö has, like Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK, referred to threats such as “uncontrolled” migration, that asylum seekers are a danger to European values, and that dual citizens threaten national security, the president’s office request to Aro is a direct glimpse into the stuffy closet Cold War Finland.

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