Migrant tales - Page 266 of 536

The foreign minister of an island called Finland

Posted on April 1, 2016 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?

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 April 1, 2016 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.

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 March 31, 2016 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.

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 March 30, 2016 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.

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 March 30, 2016 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 March 29, 2016 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.

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”

Canadian Aboriginal activist and cross-cultural expert Sandi Boucher visits Finland

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Ahti Tolvanen

There was a historic encounter in Finland last week when the first ever visitor of North America’s Ojibwe Nation, Sandi Boucher, came to meetings in Helsinki during UN Anti-Racism Week.

Ms. Boucher presented a new modern approach to constructive cross-cultural relations developed by Canada’s aboriginal community and scholars at Atlanta University, called the Alexis Principles. Key figures in developing the much-lauded method are Chief Alexis , a Sioux leader in Alberta, Canada and Leah Taylor, professor of cultural anthropology in Atlanta, USA.

Sandi Boucher and Ahti Tolvanen visited the Suonsaari asylum reception center on March 20. Photo by Enrique Tessieri.

The Alexis method has been tried and proven effective in Canada, the USA and Australia, and last year drew considerable favorable attention in Hawaii at the World Conference on Aboriginal Education.

At a symposium in Helsinki’s Caisa Cultural Center March 23^rd representatives of all the political parties were invited to meet Ms. Boucher and tell how they would address racism issues during the UN’s Anti-Racism Week. Only Green Party deputy city councillor Kati Juva , Social Democratic MP Erkki Tuomioja and Coalition Party membership holder Oge Eneh showed up. The evening’s theme was “silence on racism is not enough”. The Leftist Union, The Center Party, The Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Party presumably preferred to remain silent on racism as their representatives shunned the event.

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We are all responsible in Finland for feeding the ogre of racism and hate speech

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Those groups that are responsible for the rise of populism, racism and hate speech in Finland aren’t those that promote it but by those who stand by with their silence. They are the ones Martin Luther King Jr referred to as “the good people,” or “the silence of the good people is more dangerous than the brutality of the bad people.”

Not only is the silence of the so-called good people a factor but their expectation and hope that racism and hate speech can be kept on short leashes.

Parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, who openly promote racism and want to make permanently migrants and minorities second- and third-class citizens, could never become such big parties without the tacit support of the “good people.”

Scores of asylum reception centers were targets of arson attacks. While we don’t know the motives of Saturday’s arson attack against a church in Ylivieska, mixed statements, silence and indifference have played a role in promoting such acts. Source: Ilta-Sanomat.

Violence and hostility towards people who aren’t white Finns have become more public in recent years. The so-called “good people” have let out this monster from the cage in the form of vigilante street gangs, fear-mongering and by encouraging, directly and indirectly, racism and hate speech.

Some “good people” I could mention are the Finnish police service, President Sauli Niinistö’s disingenuous and mixed statements about our ever-growing cultural diversity, and politicians who make careers by being racist and promoting hate speech. Others include the national media interested in its power and ethnic narrative, and an education system that still doesn’t promote enough cultural diversity at schools to reflect better the diversity of Finland in the 21st century.

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A formal complaint by five asylum seeker at Luona’s reception center sheds light on alleged “gross abuses”

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Abuses at the asylum reception centers run by Luona have come to light from the occupants who consider their alleged treatment by the staff of the private company as “gross abuses” and a breach of their “human dignity” and “rights.”

The disturbing revelations in the complaint below show that Finland and especially Luona has failed these people miserably. The fact that we have an anti-immigration party in government and two other ones that turn a blind eye to such abuses and rising xenophobia in Finland is shameful.

Let’s hope that the Finnish Immigration Service and others resolve these injustices.

The complaint below is dated February 14, 2016:

(The names of the asylum seekers have been omitted).

Continue reading “A formal complaint by five asylum seeker at Luona’s reception center sheds light on alleged “gross abuses””

Is Barona’s fast-track employment scheme “a joke?”

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Migrant Tales

Helsingin Sanomat, Finland largest daily, published a story this month about three Eritreans who had found work at a logistics company in Vantaa thanks to a fast-track employment scheme at Barona, a private employment agency that owns Luona, a subsidiary that manages eight asylum reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Hyvinkää.

Migrant Tales asked in a previous posting a question that Helsingin Sanomat should have asked:

How come a company that has come under media scrutiny for treating asylum seekers “like livestock” is now helping people to become model tax-paying members of society?

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

According to a former asylum seeker at Luona, who got a residence permit to live in Finland, Barona’s fast-track employment scheme isn’t doing that well.

Continue reading “Is Barona’s fast-track employment scheme “a joke?””