After the police had detained five white Finnish terrorist suspects in the town of Kankaanpää, students at the fine arts campus of the Satakunta University of Applied Science (SAMK) were surprised to read from Iltalehti that one of the apparent targets of the terrorist suspects was the school.
SAMK’s Kankaanpää campus has about 300 students.
“We had heard about how much those held in custody by the police wanted us out of Kankaanpää because we studied fine arts and because we weren’t from the town,” said a SAMK student, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid any reprisals against him.
Like the rest of Finland, the SAMK student had read about the five terrorist suspects on Friday (3.12) thanks to the media. However, on Wednesday, Iltalehti wrote that one of the targets was the school.
Some of the students feel abandoned by SAMK,” the student said. “We read the Iltalehti story [that the school was a target of the terrorist suspects] on Wednesday, but it was not until Friday that the principal spoke to the students of the school.”
The student said that some of his classmates meet at the local bar, and it is there where they meet the neo-Nazis. There has been one brawl between a SAMK student and a neo-Nazi and other incidents.
“We are still in shock about the news, and many of us prefer to keep a low profile,” the student concluded. “Commenting without names on social media about what happened is out of the question.”