Perussuomalaiset (PS)* third vice president Juho Eerola is suspected of ethnic agitation, according to YLE News. If convicted, only PS First Vice President Laura Huhtasaari would be the only board member of the party that doesn’t have a conviction for ethnic agitation. Chairman Jussi Halla-aho was convicted in 2012 and MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, the second vice president, convicted in January.
Eerola, who is an anti-immigration politician who said Benito Mussolini’s fascism attracted him, got in legal hot water when he wrote in Facebook this summer that he spat at Roma beggars and asked them if they accepted Visa.
Eerola chairs the parliamentary administration committee that, among other things, oversees immigration policy.
Migrant Tales had the opportunity to speak by phone to Rikhard Blomerus, a Savonlinna deputy councilperson, who filed ethnic agitation charges to the police and brought the matter to the attention of the chancellor of justice.
“I filed charges not because I am a Roma, but I would have done it irrespective if the victim were Saami or any other minority like the Swedish Finns,” he said, stating that he knew Eerola when he was a member of the PS. “I think he made the [Facebook] posting to score brownie points [with the voters].”
UPDATED: Blomerus said that he had received a lot of comments about what he did.
“A lot of them are angry with me,” he continued. “One was even angry because he considered it an insult that a Roma would bring charges against a white Finn.”
Blomerus used to be a member of the PS but left the party after Halla-aho was elected chair in June. The Savonlinna deputy councilperson has complained previously about the anti-Roma sentiment in the PS.
“I don’t belong to any party these days,” he said. “I’m an independent.”
Read the full story here.
Migrant Tales contributor Ana Maria Gutiérrez-Sorainen asked in an op-ed piece an important question: Why would an YLE reporter ask Halla-aho, who was convicted of ethnic agitation, his opinion about Eerola being a suspect of ethnic agitation? It’s a bit like asking a convicted rapist what he thought about another rapist who is suspected of such a crime, she wrote.
Sira Moksi’s view of what Eerola wrote in the summer. Source: Facebook.
* After the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.
A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.