Kolari asylum seekers “very happy” about the closure of the reception center

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A number of asylum seekers at the Kolari reception center expressed happiness about plans by the Finnish Immigration Service to close Finland’s northernmost center on November 31. 

“This is good news and we are all very happy at the camp, the Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis and everyone,” an asylum seeker told Migrant Tales by phone. “We heard the news today and are hopeful that some of us will be transferred from here before November.”

While the closing of the reception center was welcome news, the asylum seeker said he was concerned about the hard line that the Finnish Immigration Service was taking on granting residence permits to asylum seekers.

“There are many negative decisions and this is something that concerns us,” the person said.

According to some estimates, about 10,000 asylum seekers out of a total 32,500 that came last year will get residence permits.

Continue reading “Kolari asylum seekers “very happy” about the closure of the reception center”

Soldiers of Odin: Finland now “exports” hate and white supremacist ideology to the world

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Alongside our world-famous education system, Finland now becomes known for things that some would consider shameful but was never challenged enough like the Soldiers of Odin, a white (Finnish) supremacists hate group that has caught the attention of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a USAmerican anti-Semitism and anti-bigotry group founded in 1913.

Hatred, racism, and bigotry have a way of biting back at you if you don’t challenge it hard enough. In Finland, like in many parts of Europe, politicians, and the media have been too slow to react and lacked the courage to challenge racism and groups like the Soldiers of Odin.

In plain English, our lack of resolve on this front is our failure as a society to defend our Nordic values from hate groups like the Soldiers of Odin.

When we speak of Nordic ideals of social equality we must, however, ask a further key question: Which group is entitled to these privileges?

When reporting about extremist groups like the Soldiers of Odin, the media and politicians should keep in mind the following matters that the ADL points out in a statement below about the vigilante group. They spell it out pretty clearly. The Soldiers of Odin is an anti-Muslim, white (Finnish) supremacist neo-Nazi extremist group.

Writes ADL:

FROM FINLAND WITH HATE

The Soldiers of Odin originated in the tiny Scandinavian country of Finland in late 2015, but the group’s formation and rise are tied to the larger refugee problem that countries across Europe have experienced in recent years. Conflicts in places such as Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have created large numbers of asylum-seekers fearing persecution in their home countries, as well as refugees seeking better economic conditions than the ones in their war-torn nations.

The fact that we now “export” bigotry on such a scale should set alarm bells ringing.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-30 kello 6.09.25

Read full ADL statement here.

Continue reading “Soldiers of Odin: Finland now “exports” hate and white supremacist ideology to the world”

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government is one of the most hostile ever towards migrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Since when has a Finnish government tightened immigration policy the way Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government has? There was the last government that tightened family reunification guidelines but that’s all I can remember. Is Siplä’s government one of the most hostile towards migrants and our ever-growing culturally diverse society?

Why so much hostility?

One answer to the above question is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, which is a partner in government with the Center Party and National Coalition Party (NCP).

But to blame one party for the rise of xenophobia in Finland would be simplistic. If we look more closely we’ll find the answer right under our noses: The government is formed by three parties. Finland’s politicians, the media and public have done little to stand up against racism and defend the traditional values and beliefs of our Nordic welfare state.

In other words, our society has lacked leadership and vision. We have fallen into the right-wing populist trap: solutions are simple because the argument is black and white.

Continue reading “Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government is one of the most hostile ever towards migrants”

How the Finnish police and media play down hate crimes

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Violence against asylum seekers is nothing new in Finland. We’ve read about arson attacks against asylum reception centers and now the head of a reception center in Lahti, who claims that between five and ten residents have been physically attacked by groups of Finnish men, according to YLE News.

Like in many countries in Europe, hate crimes go underreported in Finland and are only the tip of the iceberg, according to a recent shadow report by the NGO European Network Against Racism. With this in mind, attacks against asylum seekers in Finland go mostly unreported.

Two matters caught my eye about this story. The first by YLE News quotes Häme Police Service Detective Inspector Martti Hirvonen as stating that they “are taking this seriously and will react vigorously if more cases come to light” but in an MTV3 story he plays down what happened.

“Hirvonen doesn’t believe what happened is widespread,” he said.

Here’s the question: If investigations into the matter are at a preliminary stage, how can he conclude with certainty that such crimes aren’t more widespread than believed?”

__________________________________________________________________________________

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-27 kello 8.30.30

Read full story here.

 

Police allegedly threatened asylum seeker with deportation if “he didn’t behave” and stop protesting

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A fight that took place today between two families at the Kolari asylum reception center forced five police service vans and 12-15 police to arrive at the camp, which is located in a far-flung village of 3,857 inhabitants, according to sources contacted by Migrant Tales. The fight is one matter but what the police allegedly told an asylum seeker is equally worrying. 

While some may see dispatching five squad cars to break up a fight between two families as an exaggeration and a waste of taxpayers’ money, it’s what the police sometimes says and does that can cause concern.

While we want to believe that the police service tries to be impartial and do its job professionally, we sometimes learn that this isn’t the case.

If the story of an asylum seeker is to be believed at the Kolari reception center, two police told him that they didn’t want to speak to him, a potential witness of the fight, “because he [and another person] at the camp cause problems [like organizing a peaceful demonstration this month against the manager].”

The source claimed that the two policemen, who were in the presence of a Red Cross employee, told the asylum seeker that they would be “sent back to their country if they didn’t stop causing trouble.”

If this is the case, we consider the police to have crossed the line. Asylum seekers, like us, are guaranteed the human right to demonstrate.

Moreover, is this the job of the Finnish police to tell them that they’ll be deported if they don’t shut their mouths up? If this actually happened today, what does it say about the Red Cross employee who didn’t react to what the police said?

For one it shows that matters are still in pretty bad shape at the Kolari asylum reception center.

 

 

 

Facebook: White Finnish woman hurling racist insults and a bucket of water

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight:  When I read Ruth Waweru-Folabit’s story on Facebook below I wondered what is going on with this country. She is a black woman from Kenya sitting with her two children aged 8 and 3 years with another woman, a white USAmerican and her two children aged 8 and 5 years. It happened in the Helsinki neighborhood of Herttoniemi.

What is most upsetting about this story is that the police didn’t bother to ask her if she wanted to press charges against the woman that insulted her in a racist manner in public and threw a bucket of water on her, her two children and her friend’s children.

“When another neighbor told the woman to shut up, she called her an n-word lover,” Waweru-Folabit said. “She said that she was a Finn, and therefore, nothing would happen to her [for harassing her in a racist manner and throwing a bucket of water].”

Now here’s one question that we should all ask: What would happen if Ruth Waeru-Folabit threw a bucket of water on a white Finn and started to insult her in the same was as she was insulted.

Ruth Waseru-Folabit said she would press charges against the women and would get in touch with the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman tomorrow.

____________________

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-23 kello 20.25.29

This Facebook posting was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Is the Kolari asylum reception center a copy of PS immigration and regional policy that is unconstitutional?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There is a strong argument that the Kolari reception center, located in the far-flung village of 3,857 inhabitants in the middle of nowhere, is a copy of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and specifically Social Welfare Minister Hanna Mäntylä’s contempt against asylum seekers and of regional policy that is unconstitutional.

In January 2015, the PS suggested sending unemployed migrants to live in far-flung regions of Finland, according to the party’s official immigration policy. If an unemployed migrant refused, their welfare and unemployment benefits would be affected.

While such policies are a clear violation of human rights and of Section 6 of our Constitution, which guarantees that we are all equal before the law irrespective of one’s background, they are tested with dismal results at the Kolari asylum reception center.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-20 kello 9.26.54

Read full PS immigration program (in Finnish) here.

Unhappiness at the Kolari reception center runs high. Below are two messages from an asylum seeker published in a precent Migrant Tales story:

 

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-20 kello 9.36.02

Continue reading “Is the Kolari asylum reception center a copy of PS immigration and regional policy that is unconstitutional?”

Kolari asylum seeker: Matters haven’t improved at all at the reception center

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Even if the deputy manager of the Kolari asylum reception center, Jari Sillantie, got fired on Thursday, matters at the camp haven’t gotten any better, according to an asylum seeker contacted by Migrant Tales. 

“We’re served the same food [soup] for three days and when we ask why the staff doesn’t want to talk to us,” the asylum seeker said. “They hate us. Two employees told us that if we don’t like things here, we can go back to our country.”

The asylum seeker believes that the staff “hates them” because of what happened to the deputy manager on Thursday.

How does one react if the employee told the asylum seeker that he should leave Finland if he doesn’t like it? What about if an asylum seeker at the Kolari reception center sends you the following messages below on Wednesday and Friday?

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-17 kello 21.41.06

Edited version: “If you can please help us to move from here because I swear we are very tired and we are dying here. Please (help us to) move from here.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-5-17 kello 21.40.38

Edited version: “Hi brother, please help us as we are very hungry. We don’t eat the same food they serve us every day. No one eats it: the children, women. Everyone here is tired if you can just help us so we can move the whole family from here.”

Continue reading “Kolari asylum seeker: Matters haven’t improved at all at the reception center”

What former Kolari asylum reception center deputy manager “likes” on Facebook (and it’s not pretty)

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finland was hard pressed to set up reception centers last year to house some 32,500 asylum seekers. In that quest, it’s understandable that some mistakes were made when hiring staff. What is commendable is that the Finnish Immigration Service succeeded at finding a reception center place for each of the asylum seekers. 

Even if the challenges were formidable, there were mistakes made in the rush to establish these reception centers and to hire people. Migrant Tales has written a lot of stories about such challenges at Luona-run reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Hyvinkää.

On Thursday, YLE reported that the deputy manager of the Kolar asylum reception center, Jari Sillantie, was relieved of his duties because “he wasn’t suited for the job,” according to Helsingin Sanomat, which quotes the Red Cross.

Is Sillantie suitable for the job?

Continue reading “What former Kolari asylum reception center deputy manager “likes” on Facebook (and it’s not pretty)”