A group of men with bottles and knives barged in a book presentation in the central Finnish city of Jyväskylä on far-right extremism, according to Yle in English. The men, who called themselves ”patriots,” injured one of the body guards who was taken to hospital. The attackers fled the scene.
Members of the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) are suspected to have attacked the book presentation.
Two of Äärioikesto Suomessa’s (Far right in Finland) three authors, Li Andersson and Mikael Brunila, were present at the event but weren’t hurt.
The police, who haven’t yet caught the suspects, said that they are investigating the incident as aggravated assault.
MTV3 reported on the 10pm news that two of the attackers ave been identified but could not confirm if the police had apprehended them.
This neo-Nazi SKV sticker was found in front of my home in spring.
The attack in Jyväskylä demonstrates that far right and neo-Nazi groups in Finland are getting bolder.
Far right in Finland ‘s third author, Dan Koivulaakso, was attacked with pepper spray in June at a North Pride event in Oulu.
If the police would connect all the recent dots about the presence of far-right violence in this country, I’m certain that some would be concerned.
The same way that the police plays down the threat of these groups, it doesn’t appear too concerned either by the rising number of hate crimes and racism inflicting this country.
I spoke with Alain Minguet, a Green Party city councilor and president of JoMoni, over a year ago that something like what happend in Jyväskylä could take place, or worse.
Many who write about racism in Finland get harassed. The first story I wrote about how badly Somali’s were treated in Mikkeli in the early 1990s for a major Finnish magazine landed me two death threats by phone. There was a third caller who harassed and insulted me over the phone.
The death threats and threats in general haven’t stopped. I filed a complaint to the police last spring about such cases but haven’t heard a word from them. The policeman investigating the case doesn’t even answer my phone calls.
Believe it or not, the police in Mikkeli and Pieksämäki have told me that I should not report racist harassment cases to the police.
It’s time for the authorities to get tough with neo-Nazi and far right groups that use violence and death threats to get across their message.
There should be tougher punishments for all kinds of violence in Finland.
That’s brilliant suggestion. If you’re really concerned about the rise of violance in Finland then why don’t you clean your PS party. Right now the only violance we’re witnessing is coming from people who have nazi ideology not islam or any other ideology. So why not clean your party if your honestly concerned?
I agree. Violent attacks should always mean jail time, no exceptions.
Farang & PS
Typical laziness from the PS brigade. “Let’s get tough on crime” – because it’s an easy throw-away statement that means absolutely nothing.
First, study after study has shown that sentencing has little or no effect on crime rates. Sentencing in both the US and Australia got much tougher in the last 20 years, and crime rates have remained stable.
The idea that criminals take sentencing into account before committing a crime is also not borne out by evidence. Most crime appears to be impulsive. Likewise, if tough sentences were effective, then recidivism (re-offending rates) would be low. They are not – 40% in 3 years and almost 60% within 15 years re-offend. So much for jail being some kind of education in how to behave.
Norway’s criminal justice system is heavily weighted towards rehabilitation (less punitative) and their recidivism rate is 20%.
The evidence clearly speaks against the kind of dim-witted, knee-jerk reaction that you boneheads have made here towards crime, which is so typical of PS supporters and politicians who are only keen on sabre-rattling and sounding tough!
And by the way, the way to reduce crime apart from effective rehabilitation is higher numbers of police officers on the streets.
Mark
How come you are unable to understand that a person in jail is unable to commit crimes on the streets? That is the point in putting them away, not to educate them. As you say 60% will reoffend, so all those crimes could be prevented if the offenders are kept in jail.
Farang
This is not true. The length of sentences has gone up in the US and in Australia and yet the crime rate remains stable. Explain that? The obvious point is that the number of criminals has actually increased. So much for prison being effective. Actually what increases is the prison vortex, the cycle of offence, prison, release and reoffending, over and over. In Finland 10 per cent of the prison population are caught up in this vortex.
Rather than sticking to ideology and your own very very limited logical powers, why don’t you actually research the topic for a change, Farang. I’m getting tired of your ‘wisdom found at the bottom of a beer glass’ comments.
Also, another important factor in reducing recidivism is providing proper drug and alcohol dependency treatment while in prison. This has had a very noticeable effect on recidivism in the Finnish prison population.
Well written Mark. Just keep on giving them the facts even though they will always have an alternative “wisdom found at the bottom of a beer glass”. 🙂
Thanks for the feedback, Happy. Nice to have your support.
Violence – the use, propagation and idolization of it – is a key feature of the far-right.
The far right is essentially opposed to the principles of the Enlightenment, i.e. rationalism, the belief in a man-created ‘good’ society as opposed to some kind of ‘natural order, equality, freedom and fraternity.
It has and will always use violence where its so-called arguments are unmasked as being what they are: lies.
Even when not fundamentally challenged by the powers that be – after all, the far right discourse is not really contradicted by the mainstream, on the contrary their ideas are more and more becoming part of the mainstream – the far right will use violence when contradicted, which is in my opinion another characteristic trait of the far right: their inferiority complex (although they are ironically enough often referred to as white suppremacists).
I think that after Breivik, the states of Europe should start realizing what a threat these far right organizations and individuals pose and should start fighting back.
One more thing: Farang and PS voter state that there should be tougher punishments for all kinds of violence. I do not necessarily agree: I think that this kind of assault on a peaceful gathering of people in order to discuss a political subject is a whole different thing altogether than some drunk who punches his friend in the face after a night out. The yesterday far right assault is a deliberate attack on the democratic right of gathering and should as such be punished more severely.
TS
That’s usually a prelude to changing the subject to talk about immigrant crime.
Interesting and well-thought out comment, TS.