More alleged abuses of asylum seekers by Barona security guards

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales continues hearing disturbing news about the poor treatment by Barona security guards and the Finnish police of asylum seekers. 

Barona is a private employment agency that owns Luona, a subsidiary that manages eight asylum reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Hyvinkää.

Any problem with an asylum seeker at a Luona reception center and the police is called. They are usually taken to a police station where they are locked up is some cases for up to 15 hours.

One asylum seeker who took a picture of himself by a Barona security guard’s car got questioned and got sent to the police station for 1-2 hours. One wonders what “crime” he committed.

Would a white Finn be sent to the police station if he did the same thing? I doubt it. 

Migrant Tales heard that Barona security guards had locked out as well some asylum seekers from their rooms for three days for cooking food inside their room.

Continue reading “More alleged abuses of asylum seekers by Barona security guards”

The Finnish police service and its issues with ethnic profiling

Posted on by Migrant Tales

When the Finnish police service speaks to the media, white Finns usually give it the benefit of the doubt. Even if the police service tries its best to assure us that it doesn’t ethnically profile people, belief and credibility are in the eye of the beholder. 

Due to ethnic profiling and the lack of ethnic diversity in the Finnish police service, some migrants and visible minorities like the Roma see the police service with apprehension.

To these people, the police is an extension of white Finnish privilege and power. The fact that some minorities and migrants don’t trust the police should concern this public service.

On Saturday Migrant Tales published a story, citing tabloid Iltalehti, about how the police service together with the Finnish Border Guard wilfully targetted foreigners for spot identity checks in Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa.

Six people on the wanted list were apprehended by the police in the operation.

Despite the commotion and unfair treatment of the police service in targeting “people who stand out from white Finns,” the police claims that there was no ethnic profiling.

“We also apprehended Finns,” Inspector Johanna Sinivuori was quoted as saying in Ilta-Sanomat.  “Estonians for example and other nationals from neighboring countries were stopped and asked for IDs due to the immigration act. Indeed, we try to avoid annoying and inconveniencing the person. People usually understand when we tell them that the immigration act requires us to do this.”

How many visible minorities and migrants did the Ilta-Sanomat reporter approach?

None as usual.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-4-3 kello 12.50.57

Suldaan Said Ahmed tweeted: “From tomorrow I have to have to carry my ID papers with me, this only applies to dark(-skinned) people.”

Ethnic profiling and discrimination are serious matters, especially if you’re the victim of such abuse.

Continue reading “The Finnish police service and its issues with ethnic profiling”

The police spot check “foreigners” Friday in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa but it’s not called ethnic profiling

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If there is an institution that discriminates and maintains white Finnish privilege in this country, it is the police service. A story by tabloid Iltalehti reports that the police service together with the Finnish Border Guard wilfully targetted foreigners for spot identity checks in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa. 

Inspector Johanna Sinivuori told Iltalehti that the spot checks, which were done after 11 pm on Friday, were carried out with the help of Finnish Border Guard officials.

“Certainly when we do this with the Finnish Border Guard, who use different uniforms [than us], it may raise some eyebrows,” she said.

Raise some eyebrows? What about raising a question: Is this ethnic profiling or not?

Since this is an unfriendly question to ask a representative of the police service, the inspector is left off the hook by the reporter.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-4-2 kello 19.22.11

Read full story here.

When the police service and Finnish Border Guard stop “foreigners” or “foreign-looking people” for their IDs the question we should ask is what does a foreigner look like?

Continue reading “The police spot check “foreigners” Friday in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa but it’s not called ethnic profiling”

Pieksämäki reception center fire shows that the Finnish media and police service consider asylum seekers “guilty before proven innocent”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is surprising that the Länsi-Savo story below doesn’t mention once the term “suicide” in the story about an alleged Iraqi 45-year-old asylum seeker who locked himself in Thursday night and attempted to set his room on fire. 

Reports Länsi-Savo: “One asylum seeker at the [Pieksämäki] reception center is suspected of starting a fire in his room,” said Senior Constable Kari Toivonen of the Eastern Finnish police department.

Moreover, the story does state that the asylum seeker had locked himself in a room, and set it on fire because he felt frustrated by the slow pace of his asylum application process and missed his family.

The question we should thus ask is why would a person, who is not considering committing suicide as well as put in harm’s way other people, would lock himself in a room and try to set it on fire?

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-4-2 kello 8.36.57

These tweets by @onkkoponkko highlight how hard and unkind we have become. If Finns treated their own kind the way they treat asylum seekers today this country would be up in arms.

Instead of just accusing the man of a criminal act, the Länsi-Savo reporter should have asked if reception centers in this country offer adequate psychological help to people suffering from depression and other issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

But the suspect who tried to take his life is an asylum seeker. Asylum seekers have no voice in Finland and are usually guilty before proven innocent. The narrative of the Länsi-Savo story and that of the police reveals how heartless and cold we’ve become as a society to the suffering of others. Finding a human with feelings in Europe these days isn’t easy especially in Finland.

Continue reading “Pieksämäki reception center fire shows that the Finnish media and police service consider asylum seekers “guilty before proven innocent””

The foreign minister of an island called Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finnish foreign minister, Timo Soini of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, was on the Embuske, Veitola ja Salminen talk show on Thursday. On the program, he showed his bigotted views with a smile by taking credit for stopping the flow of asylum seekers to Finland.

“We stopped the flow [of asylum seekers],” he boasted. “And credit should be given to the PS.”

Last year, some 32,500 asylum seekers came to Finland. 

Soon after Soini’s statement, National Coalition Party MP Arto Satonen said that credit should go to his party’s interior minister, Petteri Orpo.

Imagine, two parties fight to see who gets credit for being the most heartless.

Credit and merit?!

Is it a “merit” to turn your back to people fleeing war, poverty, and persecution? Is it a “merit” to believe that your greedy expectations and arrogance will save you or your children from suffering the same fate in the future as these asylum seekers today?

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-4-1 kello 9.18.31

Watch full talk show here.

Certainly Donald Trump’s “good cop” has the gall to affirm such a thing. According to him, we should be proud of ourselves for turning our backs to people who are fleeing war and in need of protection.

Continue reading “The foreign minister of an island called Finland”

CORRECTED: 45-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker allegedly attempted to take his life in Pieksämäki

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales has learned that a 45-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker* at the Pieksämäki reception center on Soiseläntie has allegedly attempted to take his life by locking himself in a room and setting it on fire Thursday evening. 

We reported earlier that “employees of the asylum reception center extinguished the fire department, and ambulance (see picture below). New information that we’ve received alleges that it was the asylum seekers who forced open the door and extinguished the fire.

“They forced opened the room where the person had locked himself in,” a source said. “The person who attempted to take his life was saved and taken to the hospital.”

The source said that one reason why the man attempted to take his life was because he was tired of waiting if he’d get asylum in Finland.

Helsingin Sanomat wrote about the fire but did not mention that the person had attempted to take his life.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-4-1 kello 0.46.08

The picture, which was taken from an asylum seeker’s mobile phone in Pieksämäki, shows two police cars, an ambulance, fire department car and truck.

Migrant Tales reported two suicide cases in March that involved two asylum seekers in Helsinki.

*We reported incorrectly that the asylum seeker who attempted to take his life was over 60 years in an earlier story. 

Terhi Kiemunki and the PS of Finland are laughing all the way to the bank

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* politician Terhi Kiemunki not only is an example of the illness of racism that inflicts Finland but that of a party and a society that offers fertile ground for bigotry towards and social inequality of migrants and minorities.

Setting aside her racist and Islamophobic views, it’s the PS’ reaction and the passivity and silence of other political parties to Kiemunki that is especially worrying.

Racism and bigotry have become so public and “normal” in Finland lately that we can find excuses to justify such anti-social behavior. We can soften the blows of such a social ill by placing white gloves to cover enraged fists.

The whole debate in the media, and the silence and empty promises of the PS’ partners in government and the opposition, show the extent of the problem.

Kiemunki and the PS are laughing out loud all the way to the bank. They are cashing in on political points for the municipal and parliamentary elections of 2017 and 2019, respectively. As they do this they rub salt on our collective amnesia.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-3-31 kello 7.04.27

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

While I’d be the last person in Finland to be invited to a closed-door meeting with the PS and Kiemunki, who is pleading not to be sacked from the anti-immigration party, her argument would be a simple one.

“Haven’t I given the party positive publicity by affirming to our voters that we hate Muslims?”

Silence and nods of approval would follow.

Continue reading “Terhi Kiemunki and the PS of Finland are laughing all the way to the bank”

If Donald Trump had a “good cop” that person would be Timo Soini

Posted on by Migrant Tales

US Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, can be in the spotlight thanks to his racist rants. Some journalists in Finland have tried unsuccessfully to ask what Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Foreign Minister Timo Soini, a populist, thinks of Trump. 

In my opinion, there are a lot of similarities between both politicians.

If Trump had a “good cop” that person would undoubtedly be Soini.

Unfair comparison? Like Trump in the United States, Soini has brought his brand of populism to Finland. Like Trump, Soini has given a platform to racists and fascists. The factor that unites both of them is their hatred of people who are different from them.

Trump and Soini promote the same type of polarized society but in different national contexts.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-3-30 kello 9.35.25

Donald Trum the “bad cop” and Timo Soini the “good cop.” Source: busisinessinsider.com and aamulehdenblogit.ning.com.

 * The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We, therefore, prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. The direct translation of “Perussuomalaiset” is “basic Finn.” 

A rebuttal to Finland’s speaker of parliament concerning her claim of “high migrant unemployment”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Ahti Tolvanen

Now a leading SMP person has slid from “immigration criticism” which has mainly focused on the large influx of asylum seekers to talking about all persons of foreign origin living in the country- probably also returning Finns.

This would include technical professionals, academics, students, managers and investors. The whole history of Finnish economic and industrial development shows that these kinds of immigrants played a large part in the making of modern Finland as the prosperous and developed society that it is. Madam Speaker also has her facts wrong. The overall employment rate in the last published statistics shows labour market participation among the foreign-origin population to be somewhat higher as well as earning higher average incomes.

Therefore, it might be said the average foreigner is paying more than the average Finn to keep a proportionately larger number of unemployable Finns on the dole (cf. Tilastokeskus). I think I speak for most immigrants when I say we don’t mind because we find Finland and Finns loveable, even the unemployables.

What we have now is a very noisy group shouting things like “close the borders” of Finland, which has gotten into this media bubble which exists in this country and is getting repeated coverage. Since many of these leading noisemakers belong to the same party as Madam Deputy Speaker, she can do the country a favour by telling them to shut up. Indeed, this is one of her jobs- at least inside Parliament.

Continue reading “A rebuttal to Finland’s speaker of parliament concerning her claim of “high migrant unemployment””

Finnish PS speaker of parliament blames migrants for high unemployment

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Anti-immigration party Perussuomalaiset (PS)* speaker of parliament, Maria Lohela, states in an interview in Helsingin Sanomat that the jobless rate among some migrant groups is many times higher than the national average. True. But the question the reporter should ask Lohela is “why” and “what she’s doing to change the situation” instead of parroting her views. 

The claim that there is no work for migrants is a way for parties like the PS to continue to spread their bigotry and suspicion of migrants. It’s an excuse by Lohela to do nothing and a hostile narrative that Helsingin Sanomat likes to rubber-stamp it.

Possibly one reason some of us don’t care too much to ask “why” or “how to resolve high unemployment” is because we’re not interested, or, at least, Lohela and the PS aren’t.

The whole idea that a person is to blame for being unemployed is a socially conservative notion. Doesn’t society play a role? What kinds of obstacles do prejudice and discrimination play?

A shadow report on Afrophobia in Europe by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) made the following recommendations on how to tackle high unemployment among migrants in Finland:

  • Establish an equality body responsible for dealing with discrimination cases within employment.
  • A plan needs to be developed and implemented to increase the ethnic diversity of the workforce in the public sector in particular within the non-discrimination Ombudsman’s office and the police service.
  • Government agencies and NGOs must improve their monitoring of discrimination in all areas and especially in employment.

It is incredible, to say the least that not one non-white Finn works for the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman’s office never mind the tiny number of those for the police service.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-3-29 kello 12.46.59

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Another factor that helps keep high unemployment rates among migrants and minorities is people like Lohela. Her anti-immigration and Islamophobic narrative encourage instead of challenge high unemployment rates.

Continue reading “Finnish PS speaker of parliament blames migrants for high unemployment”