Finns have finally woken up to a lie and bully called the Perussuomalaiset party
After bullying, labeling and scapegoating migrants and minorities for a number of years, the Perussuomalaiset party (PS)* appears to be returning to the minor one-digit political leagues, if a recent poll by Helsingin Sanomat is true. Those groups that the PS has attacked and spread lies about will have the last laugh.
While there is still a long way to go before the parliamentary elections of 2019, the municipal elections are just around the corner on April 9.
A poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat shows the Perussuomalaiset in the minor one-digit political leagues with 8.6% Source: Helsingin Sanomat.
Some analysts believe that if the PS does poorly in the municipal elections, which would mean below 10% of the votes, it may prompt the party to exit government. Depending which party replaces the PS or if new elections are called, it could even mean an about-turn in immigration policy.
Continue reading “Finns have finally woken up to a lie and bully called the Perussuomalaiset party”
Ahmad Liath: “I left Iraq because I long for freedom”
Ahmad Liath was twelve years old when he left Iraq in 2005. Two years before that year, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and in 2004 his father was killed.
After the invasion by the United States and its allies, thing didn’t get better but worse in Iraq. A testimony of the latter is the violence and death that we commonly read in the news from Iraq today.
Like thousands of other Iraqi asylum seekers, Liath, who lives in the city of Tampere, located 178 km north of Helsinki, came to Finland in the fall of 2015. Like many of his fellow countrymen, he too got a rejection for asylum from the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) in January. His mother, however, who came with him to Finland, got a positive decision from Migri ten days before his rejection.
Eleven years is a long time for anyone to be on the road. Liath first moved from Iraq to Syria in 2005 and stayed there until 2010, when fighting in that country’s civil war got worse. He moved to Turkey and then in 2015 to Europe.
“Even if I have lived most of my life in Syria and Turkey, I still don’t know what having a home means,” he continued. “I’ve been called a lot of names during my travels like asylum seeker, tramp, bum, hobo, and wanderer. I’ve taken a lot of insults, suffered racist attacks and seen my human rights trampled,”
Liath said that one of the matters he learned after being on the road for such a long time is that you learn to mistrust everyone, especially your countrymen.
“In Austria I got a negative decision for asylum because the interpreter, who was an Iraqi, told the immigration authorities that I wasn’t a real asylum seeker,” he said.
Liath says that despite his fears and mistrust of people, he’s able to stay focused on his long journey. “I left Iraq because I long for freedom,” he said.
Liath stated that if he can settle down in Finland he’d like to study a profession like computer science and work for a company.
“It’s been difficult to go to school for me since we’ve been near-constantly on the move and I’ve been obliged to work in order to help my mother and sister,” he added.
Before coming to Finland, the young Iraqi asylum seeker moved to Germany, where he stayed at an asylum refugee center in Karlsruhe, after being in Austria and Hungary. He too took the so-called “road of death” that hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers took in 2015 through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary.
“The worst place that I visited was Hungary and in Serbia they treated us like animals,” he said. “I was locked up [in Hungary] for a month for crossing the border.”
Around 1,300 people lived in an asylum center in Karlsruhe, Germany. “Imagine what the WC looks like or when you have wait in long lines for food or get you phone charged,” he said. Picture by Ahmad Liath.
The food served at the asylum center in Karlsruhe in Germany. Picture by Ahmad Liath.
“We were 12 people in a tiny cell that was only 15 square meters,” he said. “We had to take 4-5-hour shifts sleeping because all of us couldn’t lie down on the floor at the same time. We were locked up for 22 hours and allowed to go outside for only two hours a day.”
Continue reading “Ahmad Liath: “I left Iraq because I long for freedom””
Epälojaalisuus ei riipu kaksoiskansalaisuudesta
Nicaraguan passini on nyt vanhentunut, mutta voisin koska tahansa hakea uuden. Sain Suomen kansalaisuuden 1998. Olen siis yksi Suomen kansalaisista, jolla voisi olla myös toisen maan passi. Vaikka käyn noin kahden vuoden välein Nicaraguassa ja soitan säännöllisesti äidille ja siskoilleni, minulla ei ole muita siteitä Nicaraguaan. Rakastan paikkaa, jossa olen syntynyt, mutta myös nykyistä perheeni kotimaata.
Tarinani on vain yksi tuhansien joukossa. Tilastokeskuksen mukaan yli 95 000 suomalaisella on jonkun muun maan kansalaisuus.
Ymmärrän huolet ihmisten lojaalisuudesta eri suuntiin tässä uudessa kansainvälisessä tilanteessa. Oletus on, ettei kaksoiskansalaisiin voi luottaa tietyissä asioissa. Tämän on sanonut pääministerikin. Ja tähän perustuvat Trumpin operaatiot kieltää tiettyjen muslimimaiden kansalaisia saapumasta Yhdysvaltoihin.
Perussuomalaisvetoisissa ulkoministeriössä ja puolustusministeriössä on nyt ilmennyt tapauksia, joissa kaksoiskansalaisia ei ole otettu töihin. Näin on toimittu vaikka kyse on selkeästi kansalaisuuteen perustuvasta syrjinnästä.
Lain mukaan kaksoiskansalaisuudella ei saisi olla merkitystä rekrytoinnissa. Jokainen kaksoiskansalainen on Suomen kansalainen. Suomen kansalaisten lakisääteinen eriarvoinen kohtelu edellyttää perustuslain muuttamista.
Enemmän kuin kansalaisuus tai kaksoiskansalaisuus, ihmisen lojaliteettia määrittävät hänen sidosryhmänsä. Esimerkiksi dosentti Johan Bäckman olisi vuosia sitten saanut tehdä töitä armeijan ja ulkoministeriön tehtävissä, koska tiettävästi Bäckman ei ole kaksoiskansalainen. Jos hänet olisi tuommoiseen virkaan valittu, mihinköhän suuntaan hänen lojaliteettinsa olisi osoittanut?
President Niinstö and Prime Minister Juha Sipilä believe that dual nationals pose threat to Finland’s national security
The debate on dual citizenship in Finland became headline news again on Thursday when President Sauli Niinistö was quoted as saying on YLE News that dual nationals could pose a security threat to the country. On Friday, YLE published a poll where 66% of the respondents agreed that dual nationals shouldn’t be hired to work for the defense forces and foreign ministry.
One of the interesting questions we should ask is why has dual citizenship become such a burning national issue at this moment?
Source: YLE News.
Apart from this week’s scoop by YLE, which revealed that the defense forces places restrictions on conscripts who are dual citizens of Finland and Russia, it appears to be as well one of President Niinistö’s favorite topics. In 2014, he started to gather information about dual citizens.
According to Thursday’s Helsingin Sanomat, a person with Finnish and Russian citizenship was also turned down a job in the foreign ministry because he was a dual national.
Another reason why dual citizenship has hit the headlines in Finland again is because municipal elections will take place on April 9. This may be a good way for government parties like the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset*, which have seen their poll numbers plummet, and its partners, the Center Party and National Coalition Party (NCP), to bolster support in the upcoming elections.
Another politician that was in favor of placing restrictions on dual nationals from getting jobs at the foreign ministry and defense forces is Prime Minister Juha Sipilä of the Center Party.
Before being elected as head of state, Niinistö was an NCP member.
Plans to discriminate against dual nationals in Finland may have also a lot to do with the present negative immigration and anti-cultural diversity climate in Finland, which has put pressure on political parties to scale back and water down laws that stand up for human rights and diversity.
Source: YLE News.
After Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995, it passed a number of liberal laws that fostered respect for diversity and human rights.
One of these new laws was the Constitution, which replaced in 1999 the former one that was in force since 1919. Section 6 of the present Constitution states:
“No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.”
Matti Jutila of the Finnish League for Human Rights believes that it will be difficult to draft a law that sees dual citizenship as an “acceptable reason” to exclude people from being hired at the foreign ministry or defense forces.
Hayder Al-Hatemi is freed from detention and becomes a momentary bright spot in the gloom that asylum seekers face in Finland
Some stories that Migrant Tales has published about asylum seekers in Finland have had tragic endings. On Wednesday, however, there was a bright spot that cut through some of the gloom: Hayder Al-Hatemi, alias “SH,”* was released from detention from Helsinki’s Metsälä immigration removal center.
Today was his first full day as a free man.
“It really feels great to be free,” he said by phone. “I met Miro [del Gaudio] and we went to Migri [Finnish Immigration Service] to renew my work permit.”
Al-Hatemi said that being locked up at an immigration removal center like Metsälä is something he had never experienced in his life before.
“You are locked up with other people who may have criminal records and be drug dealers,” he continued. “What is my crime? Is it because my application for asylum was rejected? I’m not a criminal.”
Al-Hatemi said that his employer at a bakery in Laitila has promised to help him enroll in school so he could learn a new profession and become a baker. “This is such a nice feeling and so many people have helped me and made my freedom a reality,” he said.
Celebrating Hayder Al-Hatemi release Wednesday in Helsinki. From left to right: Eero Pellikka, Al-Hatemi, and Miro del Gaudio.
Al-Hatemi’s legal representatives, Lex Gaudius, have been instrumental in helping the Iraqi asylum seeker.
Lex Gaudius authorized lawyer Eero Pellikka was happy as well about his release.
Jussi Niinistön kiihkon ei saa antaa runnella uskoa ihmiseen ja ihmisyyteen
Lapsuuden kirkonkylässä asui ”herrojen Eeva”, vuokrahuoneessa Kuokkasen kauppaa vastapäätä. Koskelan Baari oli ihan vieressä, sieltä oli hyvä rohkaisuryypyn jälkeen pistäytyä päiväkahvilla. Kun Eeva tuli raskaaksi ja sai lapsen, sille etsittiin elättäjää. Ruokkomaksuille joutui kylällä tuttu mies, perheenisä, maanviljelijä ja luotettu kunnallispoliitikko. Skandaali oli tietysti tuohon aikaan 3000 asukkaan kylässä suuri, niin kuin aina näissä sukupuoliasioissa, mutta se asettui ja kylä jatkoi elämäänsä.
Pitäisikö sitten tuollaisten tapausten varalta olla luottamatta ihmiseen, menemättä naimisiin ja hankkimatta lapsia? Ovatko kaikki miehet ja naiset petollisia huijareita? Tuskinpa vain, joitakin vietti vie ja aviolupaus unohtuu, toiset eivät siitä kovin paljon perusta alunperinkään.
Ihmisten välisissä suhteissa pitäisi kuitenkin aina perustaa tekonsa ja toimensa siihen, että luotetaan toiseen ihmiseen, hänen hyväntahtoisuuteensa ja rehellisyyteensä. Avioliitossa ja muissa suhteissa sitten katsotaan, että itse toimitaan avoimesti ja hyvässä hengessä ja että toinenkin tekee niin. Jos on syytä epäillä, että toinen on täysi lurkki, niin olisi ehkä syytä olla solmimatta sitoumuksia.
Sama koskee mielestäni kansalaisia. Jos Suomen valtio ottaa ihmisen hakemuksesta kansalaiseksi, valtio luottaa tällöin henkilön hyväntahtoisuuteen ja haluun asua ja elää kunniallisena, luotettavana kansalaisena. Muussa tapauksessa kansalaisuutta ei myönnetä. Näinhän lakikin sanoo.
Suomalaisista monet tuntevat epäluottamusta venäläisiä naapureita kohtaan. Myös niitä venäläissyntyisiä ihmisiä kyräillään, jotka ovat muuttaneet Suomeen, asettuneet elämään ja hakeneet ja saaneet kansalaisuuden. Pitkät sodat, sukulaisten kaatumiset, karjalaiset evakot ja ryssä viholaisena ovat vielä muistissa, ja itsenäisyyspäivinä muistutellaan. Vanhempien ihmisten tuntema kauna on vielä melko luonnollista, vaikkakin turhaa, mutta nuoremmalla polvella – jo minunkin ikäisilläni kohta kuusikymppisillä – tämä on usutettua ennakkoluuloa, josta olisi jo aika kasvaa irti. Hyvä yhteiselo sekä omien että naapureiden kesken perustuu aina luottamukseen ja turhista ennakkoluuloista vapautumiseen.
Continue reading “Jussi Niinistön kiihkon ei saa antaa runnella uskoa ihmiseen ja ihmisyyteen”
Iraqi asylum seeker SH was released today after being detained since January 6
SH, the Iraqi asylum seeker who was detained by the police on Janaury 6, was released today from Helsinki’s Metsälä immigration removal center. SH was detained on the same day together with KM, who was released from detention on January 12.
“I’m really happy and now I must renew my work permit,” he told Migrant Tales this afternoon.
Read the full story here.
SH said he will return to Laitila where he was working at a bakery.
Facebook: Don’t let the Finnish government and Migri get you down, says Kerstin Ösgård
Kerstin Ösård
Everybody here, my friends in the Iraqi community, feel so down these days about this country’s crazy asylum policy and Migri’s stupidity. I just want all you to know that we are many Finnish people who work very hard to change the situation because we simply cannot accept how our country treats you.
We could today have 30,000 happy former refugees here, who would now work, study, feel safe, hope for the future, and who would be part of our country and contribute as tax-payers thanks to innovation and new businesses. Instead, we have 20,000 angry, tired, desperate refugees, who live in fear and pressure, and who have come to hate this country. Everybody can clearly see now that this country’s policies towards refugees is a total disaster, and that everybody, both Finns and refugees, suffer from it. The present situation doesn’t make anybody, including the racists, happier or create wellbeing. It only leads to tension and increased negativity and hatred. It’s a total failure. We have to help the government to see that.
The government and Migri are breaching international laws and undermining humanitarian values… I hope Finns wake up to see that the biggest security threat to our country at the moment aren’t foreigners, but this country’s ridiculous fear-based caveman-like government policies, and those angry racists who spread fear and hatred when there is no need for it. They live in some weird bubble where they believe that Arab people are rapists, criminals and terrorists , which is, of course, completely untrue. I feel so sorry for some Finns who don’t know that reality is much more positive, friendly and nice, than the one they see in their minds and clouds their decisions.
Tankar och känslor
Idag är det Februari den 1 år 2017 och det har hänt mycket sen 1.1.2017 allt från explosioner i Bagdad, till ISIS attacker i Mousel till masskidnappningar i Basra och andra städer i södra Irak och sedan till runt om i världen med all flykting kris, för att inte tala om Finland som fortfarande tvångs utvisar Irakiska asylsökande även efter löftet som Juha Sipilä gav då de först kom till Finland att han tänker öppna sitt hem för dem, men det slutade med att kastas i fängelseceller där de delar en säng och vid deras sida finns en toalett och i detta rum så äter de.
Mitt hjärta gråter och blöder varje gång jag tänker på alla dessa människor som begick brottet med att välja ett land som noll respekterade dem som människor – ett land som lovade tomma löften.
Eller de fall där en man tas från den personen de älskat och startat ett liv med, för att sedan få ett negativ beslut och på pekning ” du borde inte ha ingått ett förhållande med en asylsökande”
Hur kan man bara säga så? Hur kan immigrationsverket se på asylsökande som icke värdiga människor att ingå ett förhållande. Har de någonsin tänkt varför många finländska kvinnor väljer att binda sig med asylsökande?
För att dessa män har upplevt ALLT! och då menar jag verkligen allt. Fara, hot, hunger, fattigdom, död, sorg och till sist har de vuxit upp till starka män – där inget kan skrämma dem mera eller krossa dem. MEN det de inte visste att det kommer att komma till den situationen där ingenting av dessa hjälper – då ett regering noll värde sätter dessa människor och börjar ta beslut av människor liv utan att granska eller erkänna faran dessa kommer att befinna sig i ifall de skickas tillbaka.
När en person son Nerg påstår att tvångsutvisning är den sista utvägen de väljer – och då är det deras nummer ett prioritering att tvångsutvisa irakiska asylsökande som fått två avslag och som även väntar på att högsta domstolen skall ge ut den sista beslutet.
Hur jag än tänker på det som pågår just nu så blir jag allt mer rädd – kommer vi att ha en tredje världskrig? Kommer vi att bli flyktingar igen? eller skall vi kriga för vårta land – vilket är vårt land då? Finland? Irak?