I spoke to a distraught Iraqi mother who told me how she was harassed, even shoved and pushed by six people who threatened to kill her in the Helsinki neighborhood of Malminkartano. Why? Because she and her daughters are Muslims.
“I was traveling with my nine-year-old daughter on the train from Vantaa and got off at the Malminkartano station,” she said. “The same people who were speaking loudly and yelling at us on the train got off in the same station. They kept on acting aggressively, cussing, and even surrounding us, telling us to go back to where we came from and yelling Allahu Akbar.”
The mother said that her daughter was very frightened by the incident and tried to distance herself from the attackers.
“We walked to our home about 500 meters away but the six persons, who were about 25 years old, three of them were men and three women, followed us to where we live,” she continued. “When we got home, I called the police, but they told me that they didn’t need to come since I was now safe at home.”
“The incident scared my daughter pretty badly, who is even afraid to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I don’t allow her to go out and play with her friends because I am afraid that something can happen to her.”
“My daughter does not understand why people are sometimes so mean,” she concluded. “She said that she was born in Finland and did not understand why some act in such a racist manner even if she is a Finn.”