Facebook PS "medal" story update: Rautio may be sacked from party

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Tommi Rautio’s statement on Facebook that he would give a medal to the Finn who shot two Moroccan workers at a pizzeria in Oulu Saturday night “because we are at war,” has become quite a sensation on the Internet but all for the wrong reasons. The Perussuomalaiset (PS) may sack Rautio for his racist comments that not only condone but encourage violence against immigrants.

Rautio is a PS city councilman of Köyliö and a member of the party’s Satakunta region board.

When the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) got in touch with Seppo Toriseva, the chairman of the PS’ Satakunta region, he claimed that he did not know about Rautio’s comments on Facebook.

“I will get in touch with him [Rautio] today,” he said. “The incident will be weighed by the [PS’] board as well as in the regional board. We will follow the legal path but it may be that there is enough in our [PS’] bylaws to sack him from the party.”

The interesting matter to watch now is how long it will take for the PS to react and what they will do to Rautio.

Here is an update by tabloid Iltalehti.

Populist PS of Finland: Living and dying by the political sword

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The chairman of the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS), Timo Soini, has assured us on numerous occasions how racism and hate speech have no role in his party. He has said that those who wander down such a questionable path will end up being devoured by what they preach. 

Aren’t the latest gallup figures a good example of what Soini warned: live by the sword, die by the sword?

When you study an anti-EU and anti-immigration party like the PS and its leader, you have to look right under your nose for the answer to uncover the deception in the statement.

Even if Soini doesn’t use the same hate speech and racist language that many of his PS MPs do, his ideological views about immigration and other matters like women’s rights are very similar to his followers.

This explains why Soini is not moved by the racism in his party never mind about PS members belonging to the neo-Nazi groups like Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta.

The political nomenclature that the PS leader uses resembles that of a good-cop-bad-cop approach to an issue. While a PS member like Tommi Rautio can suggest on Sunday that the Finn who killed an immigrant and wounded another at a pizzeria in Oulu over the weekend should be given a medal because we are at war against immigrants, Soini will smile back and claim with a poker face: “Racism is bad.”

The ongoing cat-and-mouse debate in Finland, whether racism is a problem or not in this country and the PS, exposes yet a more worrying matter. Our dysfunction as a society to challenge an issue like racism.

We don’t need the PS or anyone to confirm our deepest worries. Our silence confirms it.

The question is not to be in shock-and-awe at the type of Finland we are seeing before us but to tackle the problem.

We are all responsible for allowing the ogre of racism out of its cage in Finland. Politicians, the media and the general public, especially immigrants and Finns with international backgrounds, must join forces and give parties like the PS and those who want to turn Finland into a segregated society a very clear message:

You won’t get off the hook easily anymore. We will not tolerate your racism and we will challenge you everywhere.

Facebook: ”If Janne is the one [who shot the foreigners at the pizzeria] then we should give Janne a medal”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Here is an excerpt of Tommi Rautio’s Facebook page about the tragic shooting at a pizzeria in Oulu, Finland, which killed one Moroccan worker and wounded a former owner of the establishment. ”If Janne is the one [who shot the foreigners at the pizzeria] then we should give Janne a medal”

Ossi Mäntylahti writes: “Suggesting a medal to the killer is ill-disposed and irresponsible. I would hope that Tommi Rautio would choose his words better.”

Tommi Rautio continues: “If not Ossi [Mäntylahti] there is already a war going on and in every war [soldiers] are decorated.”

Tommi Rautio is a member of the Perussuomalaiset party Satakunta district board of directors.

Source: Ossi Mäntylahti’s Facebook page. 

Facebook: “Jos Janne on ampuja niin kunniamerkki Jannelle”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri

Tässä Tommi Raution Facebook sivulla hän kirjoittaa Oulun pizzeria Monacossa tapahtuneesta: “Jos Janne on ampuja niin kunniamerkki Jannelle.”

Ossi Mäntylahti vastaa: “Kunniamerkin ehdottaminen tappajalle on vastemmielistä ja vastuutonta puhetta. Toivison Tommi Raution harkitsevan parrmmin puheitaan.”

Tommi Rautio jatkaa: Jos ei Ossi [Mäntylahti] niin sota on jo käynnissä ja sodissa jaetaan kunniamerkkejä.”

Tommi Rautio on Perussuomalaisten Satakunnan piirin hallituksen jäsen.

Lähde: Ossi Mäntylahden Facebook sivu.

Another tragic killing of an immigrant in Finland, in Oulu again

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

This is the third story in a span of over two weeks where an immigrant has died violently. The latest killing  took place in Oulu, where a Somali national fell off the sixth floor trying to escape three Finns that barged into his home. According to tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, a twenty-four-year-old Finn entered a pizzeria in Oulu and shot dead an immigrant worker and injured another one after taking his life. 

The injured man, 42, is the former owner of the pizzeria.

The two men that were shot at by the Finn are from Morocco, according to MTV3.

The police said that they are not ruling out the possibility of a hate crime.

Where are the politicians and why aren’t they condemning what has happened? One politician in particular, Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Olli Immonen, could say something after basing most of his political ideology on Islamophobia.

Immonen, who is from Oulu, has warned Finns about a “race war” between white Europeans and Muslims.

guardian.co.uk: Latvians reject Russian as official language

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment:  Those who have visited Latvia like I many times, the country looks beautiful from the outside but from the inside it is another story especially for about a third of the population that speak Russian as their first language. Other sources claim that Russian speakers comprise of 44% of the country’s 2.1 million people.  

While few will deny the human rights violations committed during the Soviet regime on language groups like the Latvians and Estonians, the question we should ask is if these countries have learned anything from their history.  

What will ethnic Latvians or Estonians gain by excluding a large sector of the population from society by placing language and citizenship barriers? Do they believe that denying language rights will make the “problem” go away over time?

This, I believe, is wishful thinking. Finland could play a bigger role in pointing out to these countries how, for example, we came to have two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Certainly there are historical differences why the Swedish speakers were given language rights as opposed to Russians in Latvia and Estonia, where they account for about 25% of the population.  

Despite that we haven’t embarked on questionable path of the Baltic States when it comes to mending ethnic relations, Finland has not always had a benign view of its its Russian speakers. Discrimination is a sad reality but it manifests itself different than in Latvia. 

Writes the guardian.co.uk: “Hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians moved to Latvia and the neighboring Baltic republics during the population transfers of the Soviet regime. Many of them never learned Latvian and were denied citizenship when Latvia regained independence, meaning they do not have the right to vote or work in government.”

Are the Latvians sowing the seeds of future conflicts and strife by excluding Russian speakers?

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Associated Press

Latvian voters have resoundingly rejected a proposal to give official status to Russian, the mother tongue of their former Soviet occupiers and a large chunk of the population.

Read whole story.

Forgiving our past enemies and mending relations with new ones in Finland

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 This struggle to banish our hatred of others is a long journey that will take generations to complete.  In it hides as well the seed of racism. What are we waiting for? 

By Enrique Tessieri

I have never understood why some Finns are capable of expressing  so much hatred for religious groups like Muslims, Somalis, blacks, and especially the Romany minority and Russians.  Even if the Continuation War (1941-44) ended 67 years ago, some of us still sound as if we were in those trenches waiting for the enemy to attack.

What good can come out of being in such trenches and glorifying a questionable war that took place a long time ago? Very little, I suspect, especially if those historical events hinder today our ability to make amends with our former enemies and poison our views of our ever-culturally diverse society.

My grandfather fought in the Civil War of 1918, Winter War (1839-40) and Continuation War. I have a lot of respect for him as well as all those who were put in harm’s way.

Are these wars and rivers of blood the best we can do as a nation? Do we have to continue to search in such ghastly places our identity and strength as a nation? Can’t we do better?

Certainly we can.

But in order to understand the issue we must ask why some of us still persist in glorifying past wars and hating those countries that fought against. Groups like the Defense Forces, Finnish Border Guard, the police, far-right politicians, political parties like the Perussuomalaiset and a long list of others benefit economically and politically by instilling such fear.

Those that endured past wars didn’t come out of them unscathed but traumatized and impoverished. My mother, who lived right across Marshall Carl Mannerheim’s headquarters in Mikkeli, told me that she saw an orange the first time in her life when she went to Stockholm in the early 1950s.

That trauma and hurt from those conflicts are still there but too little has been done to overcome them. We are still their captives and because of that some of us have problems in trusting foreigners.

But don’t we have to put to an end one day our suspicions of groups like the Russians? What about if we started today?

Yes, I do think that today would be a good day to forgive and cast aside my deepest fears of others not for my sake but for my children and grandchildren.

Now is a better time than ever to embark on such a journey because it will be a long one but well worth it.

Somali death in Finland: The problem that constantly mocks at us

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales was saddened to be tipped off that apparently another Somali national had died violently now in Espoo after it reported the tragic death of a Somali national in Oulu. The shock and outrage of the Somali community of the death of one of its members reveal their  mistrust for white Finnish society and the authorities. 

A blogger writes:  “Migrant tales, thank you for your releasing this information publicly. The victim was a Somali national and was murdered by his Finn brutal friends (see 17.2 thread by Akaaro).”

Matters are at a very poor state in Finland. So much so, in fact, that politicians like Jussi Halla-aho and the Perussuomalaiset (PS), who spread racism by declaring outright war against Somalis and Muslims, are elected to office and given important roles in parliament with the approval of other political parties.

Should we ask where the root of the problem lies? It lies right under our noses and inside all of us.

While violence is a good measuring stick that reveals how our society has failed some of its members, it is especially tragic when it happens to a group like the Somalis.

According to an April 2009  survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), one in three Somalis in the Greater Helsinki area said that  he or she has been a victim of racially motivated crimes in the past 12 months.

The report states:  “The highest incidence rates for assault or threat was found for Somali respondents in Finland – where 74 incidents of assault or threat for every 100 interviewees were recorded. This very high rate reflects the fact that many Somalis in Finland were victims of assault or threat on several occasions within a 12 month period.”

Some Finns, who argue in a colorblind fashion, will claim that if both violent deaths in Oulu and Espoo aren’t a hate crime we should not even bother to report it.  It has no importance and is an insignificant matter like the shameful situation of Somalis in Finland.

Every time a Somali dies in Finland or any other person in fact due to a violent crime or if he or she is abused racially in public, our failure as a society in addressing these social ills always stares back at us.

Another Somali youth dies this time in Espoo, Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Only about three weeks after the tragic death of a Somali national in Oulu, when he attempted to escape from three Finns that barged into his home, Migrant Tales has heard yet another death apparently of a Somali youth in Espoo, who died Friday morning. 

Iltalehti reports the death in a short story but those not mention the nationality of the victim.

The police have detained one of the suspects.

The police is quoted as saying on Iltalehti that the fight happened at the victim’s home.

A Somali source who got in touch with Migrant Tales, said that he heard the news about the Somali’s death from a group of youths from the same country.

“I went to Leppävaara to visit my mother and met a bunch of Somali youths on the way who said that victim was a Somali who had been killed at 4-5 in the morning after he was beaten to death [by a group of Finns],” he said.

“The story on Iltalehti doesn’t say much but imagine if a group of Somalis would have jumped a Finn and killed him,” the source added. There would be a national outcry.”

Monitori: Maahanmuuttajista vain viidennes löytää vaaliuurnille

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: In the last municipal elections in Finland in 2008, 19.6% of immigrants voted compared with 60% nationally, according to Monitori. The corresponding figure for Sweden is 40% and for Denmark it is 50%-60%. 

 Niklas Wilhelmsson of the Ministry of Justice states that immigrant is a relatively new phenomenon in Finland. “Normally voter turnout grows the longer immigrants have lived in the country but this does not imply that it will happen automatically,” he said. 

Why do you think so few immigrants vote in Finland?

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Maahanmuuttajien äänestysaktiivisuus on pysynyt Suomessa alhaisena siitä asti, kun ulkomaan kansalaiset saivat ensimmäisen kerran äänestää kunnallisvaaleissa vuonna 1992. ”On huolestuttavaa, jos äänestämättä jättäminen ei perustu päätökseen vaan tiedonpuutteeseen tai syrjäytymiseen”, toteaa oikeusministeriön erikoissuunnittelija Niklas Wilhelmsson.

Read whole story.