Tag: crime

Was PS MP James Hirvisaari bullied at school and in the army?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The most recent scandal to rock the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is another sad chapter in the history of the right-wing populist party and for the same reason: racism. The culprits are now MP James Hirvisaari and Kai Haavisto, member of the party’s Uusimaa regional board. What’s wrong with these people?

How can anyone who can count to five with his fingers suggest in 2012 that chemical castration should be an option to deal with potential rape when permitting new refugees to live in Finland?  What kind of world does Hirvisaari live in if he thinks that gang rape in South Africa is a genetic trait and a national pastime?

With respect to Hirvisaari, one could ask if his instransigent hatred against Africans and Muslims is “normal.”

Probably behind Hirvisaari’s hatred lies a hurt man who was bullied at school and in the army.

I wonder what Hirvisaari would say if I’d ask him the following question: Were you bullied as a child and as an adult? Are you getting back at those that hurt you by bashing immigrants in the same way?

 

 

 

Anti-immigration sound-bite: Rape! Rape! RAPE!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I was surprised to read a blog post on Uusi Suomi by Kai Haavisto, a Perussuomalaiset (PS) politician from Espoo, who suggested that those groups that are prone to commit rape should be castrated chemically before being allowed to live in Finland. 

Haavisto is well-known for his racist views. One of his blog entries in September suggested that the ”refugee problem” to Finland could be stopped and solved by exporting rice to Africa.

While Haavisto’s views may surprise sensible people, the reaction to what he wrote is even more stunning. The response is no different to how lynch mobs reacted when they took the law in their hands.

Social-media lynch mobs are just as sinister. Their aim is not to lynch one person but whole groups shouting in a frenzy: Rape! Rape! RAPE!

Kuvankaappaus 2013-1-18 kello 11.20.35

PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was convicted for hate speech, turns into a political Mr. Hyde if you mention two words to him: immigrant rape. In this comment above, he said that the high amount of rape committed in South Africa was a genetic trait.

As everyone knows, rape is one of the pet subjects of anti-immigration and racist groups in Finland and elsewhere.

As Migrant Tales has written on a number of blogs , the whole immigrant-rape issue is a storm in a tea cup. This does not suggest that we play down rape or any crime.

Anti-immigration groups use rape statistics to “prove” that as soon as an immigrant or refugee from a certain part of the world enters Finland, he becomes a gang rapist.

Nowhere in Haavisto’s blog entry, where he suggests chemical castration, does he give us any figures about what are the volumes of suspected never mind sentenced rape convictions. He only assumes (when you assume you make an ass our of u and me) that rape is a pastime of the immigrant community.

Certainly Haavisto’s blog entry is racist and it was surprising that Uusi Suomi’s moderators took such a long time to ban it.

If one traveled back to goes to Nazi Germany, this is exactly the type of eugenics that was carried out against Jews and other minorities like the Roma and the mentally ill.

Sad but true.

 

 

Crime statistics are used shamelessly by certain groups in Finland to label immigrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Hannu Niemi, a Justice Ministry researcher, says that crime rates by immigrants in Finland have been exaggerated by the media, report Länsi Uusimaa and Uusi Suomi. He believes that there is a political aim by some groups to cite national origin in crime statistics in order to label whole groups.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-1-12 kello 15.36.02

Migrant Tales spoke with Niemi in the spring, when an Aamulehti story written by a freelancer claimed that immigrants are overrepresented in rape crime statistics in Finland.

One of the matters that becomes clear from the Aamulehti story, as well as another one by A-Studio in August, is that both aim to label immigrants from certain regions like the Middle East as outright rapists.

Both stories place more emphasis on percentage figures rather than actual volumes, which are low. Apart from playing down or not mentioning that Finns commit the vast majority of rape crimes in this country, the A-Studio story went as far as to claim that the Iraqi community had “a problem” because it had the highest amount of rape suspects.

The total number of suspected rape cases by Iraqi immigrants was seven.

Niemi said that the number of rape crimes committed by immigrants is 1-2 per 1,000.

Even if it is clear that certain politicians and anti-immigration groups exaggerate rape and crime statistics for their own political purposes, there is an important factor missing that may shed light on why crime among 15-24 year olds is higher (over 1,600/10,000 immigrants) than among Finns (under 1,200/10,000) in the same age group. The missing factor is ethnic profiling by the police.

Here is a link that offers a comprehensive view of crimes committed by foreigners.

Are certain ethnic groups in Finland more likely to be stopped and arrested by the police than others?

Knowing the answer to this important question could shed light on the problem.

Niemi says that if the immigrant community’s age structure were the same as the Finns’, crime levels would be about the same in both groups.

 

 

 

 

Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah: Returning to Finland’s Black February

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Remember Black February? Over about three weeks we read about the deaths of three Muslims , a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of these victims in cold blood. On Monday Migrant Tales had the opportunity to meet the father and a family friend of one of the victims, Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah. 

The first thing that you notice when you meet Abdisalam’s father is his grief.  Anguish inhabits all of  Mursal Abdulah: It’s in his eyes, in his face, in his posture, in his voice,  in his persona.

The death of his eighteen-year-old son was such a strong blow that he is still recovering from the shock when two policemen broke the tragic news to him and his wife on a Friday February 17 at 10am.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he said returning to that terrible moment of his life. “My wife fainted.”

Abdisalam’s father and wife were in the first group of Somali refugees that came to Finland in August 1990 by train from the former Soviet Union. Their son was born in Finland. Abdisalam was a good athlete,  student and son, according to his father.

“He [Abdisalam] planned to study medicine,” he continued. “I was ready to send him abroad so he could become a doctor.”

Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi was a Manchester United fan. In August he would have turned nineteen.

The last time that Abdisalam’s father saw his son was on Thursday night. “His last words were that he was going to take a shower, go to a [high school] party and return,” he said. “He never did.”

Abdulah isn’t at all happy with how the police have handled the case.  Apart from not expressing any empathy for the parents’ grief, it was difficult to get any information from them about the crime.

“We were treated coldly and felt like we were the criminals,” he said. “The police appeared to be more concerned about keeping the case under wraps because they feared a revenge attack by Somalis.”

Abdulah says that if a crime were committed by a Somali it would have received a lot of  media attention.

“The thing that struck us the most was when we went to the police station,” he said. “The same information that they wouldn’t give us, we then read in the tabloids right after we left the police station. How is it possible that the papers knew more about Abdisalam’s death than us?”

Abdisalam’s death happened between midnight and 7am.  The suspect and the victim were school acquaintances.  Abdulahi says that his son died from a mortal blow to the head.  The suspect’s father was present at the crime scene as well.

I asked Abdulahi if he feels that justice will be done? “I don’t know,” he said trying to be diplomatic. “I’m not sure that I trust the police.”

One of the matters that the father has a big question mark is the complicity of the father in the whole affair. He doesn’t believe the police that the father was not an accomplice in the crime. “Abdisalam was big and physical compared with the attacker,” Abdulah said. “There must have been somebody else helping him [that could have been the father].”

A friend of the family present at the interview speaks.

“The worst thing in Finland is that if you have a different religion, culture and language, you are left on the  fringes of society,” he said. “No matter how much you try to integrate you are always left outside.”

Abdulah concludes: “Those Somalis that went to Australia and Canada are living better lives than I in Finland. All I have to show for over twenty years in Finland is a cold country with long winters and the death of my son.”

Migrant Tales expresses to the parents, relatives and friends its condolences for Abdisalam.

Finland’s police service: see no, hear no, speak no hate crimes

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales reported since the end of January some gruesome violent crimes against Muslims in Finland with the most recent one happening Wednesday. Two of these led directly to the violent deaths of a Somali and Moroccan native, both Finnish citizens.  None of these were hate crimes, according to the police. 

What is a hate crime and why do some visible immigrants disagree flatly with the police’s conclusions?

A Police College of Finland report states the following:  “The traditional definition of hate crime also entails the notion that there is no prior relationship between the offender and the victim. Hate motivation is easier to understand in connection with crimes committed by extremist groups; i.e. in instances where the suspect and victim do not know each other and the suspect’s agenda is to harm the victim on the basis of his or her membership of a specific [ethnic]group.”

And continues: “This traditional definition, however,  is not suitable for describing all crimes committed against minorities that include prejudice against a group. Crimes or harassment can also occur between people who already know one another, and such acts are not always based on one particular hate motivation.”

One matter that sheds a dubious light on the Finnish police is their claim that hate crimes fell  by 15% to 860 cases in 2010 compared with the previous year.

While we don’t have the competence nor the resources like the police to investigate a hate crime, we are members of the community that the police serves.

Even so, the ever-growing discrepancies between some immigrant and visible minority groups versus the police show a distressing trend: lack of credibility.  This can never be a good matter for the police never mind the immigrant community because the effectiveness of the police service hinges on trust.

Trust in the police service can be hindered by many factors. One of these can be the immigrant, who may came from a country where the police are more feared than criminals. In light of this fact the police in Finland must do more work to win over the trust of these groups.

A recent statement by a policeman investigating the death of the adolescent in Espoo show that credibility between the police and the Somali community are significant to say the least.

Instead of reassuring the Somali community that Finland’s streets are safe and that the police are out there to protect them, the police investigator blamed the Somalis for planting racial hatred by spreading false rumors about the murder, according to YLE.

Alan Bruce wrote recently (26.2.2012) on Migrant Tales the following:   ” For far too long many police services have been reactive and cut off from the needs of all they are supposed to serve – through inertia, sloppy standards, poor levels of training or [as in the stated findings of the Macpherson Commission in London] sheer ‘institutional racism.’”

Bruce continued: ” Tackling these problems by a radical program of training, policy and pro-active engagement with [and support for] immigrant communities, ethnic minorities, migrants, women and other minorities is not just protecting the rights of citizens [and non-citizens] but it is also about creating a professional police service that sets standards and proclaims values.”

The tragic deaths and attacks that we have witnessed so far this year should be a wakeup call.  In the present political climate in Finland, matters will unfortunately get worse before they improve.

The police must stop treating crimes against immigrants as routine matters.

Update: Older woman assaulted at Myllypuro metro station in Helsinki

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Thanks to a tip off, Migrant Tales correctly reported that the  older woman who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by a group of white Finns, at Myllypuro metro station in Helsinki on Wednesday was a Somali. The woman suffered injuries to the face and was taken to hospital by ambulance.

These types of attacks, now apparently made by young men on older women, are an indication of the violence that some immigrants suffer in Finland.

Migrant Tales earlier reported three deaths of Muslims over a span of about three weeks. A Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman, Tommi Rautio, boasted on Facebook that he would decorate the white Finnish male who killed the third victim and seriously wounded another before taking his own life in a pizzeria in Oulu.

Migrant Tales believes that attacks of the kind seen in Helsinki are the tip of the iceberg, even though the police reported that hate crimes had fallen by 15% in 2010 compared with the previous year.

The low number of reported hate crimes could be interpreted as a vote of little to no confidence in the police from certain immigrant groups.

Is Aamulehti’s claim of high rape convictions by foreigners in Finland correct?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Thirty-four percent of  convicted rape crimes committed during 2006-09 in Finland were by foreigners, according to Tampere-based Aamulehti. What is surprising, however, is that Aamulehti chose not to mention 2010 and 2011 suspected rape crimes, which totaled 141 (27.5% of all rape cases) and 109 (26%) in 2010 and 2011, respectively, according to Hannu Niemi of the Justice Ministry.

There are a lot of holes and question marks  about Toni Viljanmaa’s story. One of these is if it is a story at all. Or if the story should be that rape convictions have gone down sharply from 2006-09. There were a total of 261 convictions for rape during this three-year period.

If Viljanmaa claims that there were 34% convicted rapes during the period under review, he forgets to tell us that the actual number is 24% for all types of rapes.  If there were 141 and 109 suspected cases in 2010 and 2011 this suggests that convictions would be far less than the 34% claimed by Aamulehti.

Another big hole in Viljanmaa’s story is what types of “foreigners” is he referring to? The statistics he cites include permanent residents as well as tourists, according to Niemi.

Niemi told Migrant Tales that he had no idea why the Tampere daily published the news, which was picked up by Iltalehti. “You’d have to ask the paper [their motives for publishing these statistics],” he said. “This is public information. If a journalist asks us these types of statistics we are obliged to give it to him.”

While we are not playing down a crime like rape, what we should be asking is what does a story like this do to invite open and honest debate about a serious problem in our society and, most importantly, how to address it?

Apart from labeling and giving ammunition to anti-immigration groups to continue their victimization of certain immigrant groups, we should not forget another important legal point: A person is innocent until proven guilty.

On top of these distortions and editorializing by the reporter, he on top of this interviews an Iraqi resident and asks what he thinks about the situation.

This story is a good example of shoddy and lazy journalism.

Police unlikely to pin hate crime on the death of a Somali in Oulu, Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The police announced Wednesday that the eighteen-year-old Somali national who died in hospital Tuesday slipped from the sixth floor while trying to escape three people who barged into his home Monday night, according to tabloid Iltalehti. Migrant Tales spoke with Seppo Leinonen of the Oulu police, who said it was unlikely that the death of the young man was a hate crime. 

The police will announce at noon Thursday whether they will imprison the three suspects.

One of the three persons, a woman, knew the victim. She apparently had a disagreement with the man and told her brother about it, who then went with a metal pipe to resolve the matter, reports Ilalehti. Since the victim did not open door, the brother kicked a whole in the door and opened it from the inside.

Both the brother and sister were under the influence of alcohol.

The victim tried to escape but fell to his death from the sixth floor.

JusticeDemon makes a good point on one of his threads by asking if what happened was a “Finnish honor crime?” Below are a list of sad examples of Finnish men mending their broken family with a shotgun, service revolver or knife:

November 2011, Tyrnävä
October 2011, Varkaus
April 2011, Ikaalinen
February 2010, Lappeenranta (fortunately nobody was killed)
December 2008, Lohja (that was a retired police officer)
November 2008, Hattula
October 2008, Helsinki
October 2008, Oulu
June 2008, Ylitornio
March 2008, Pori

Migrant Tales had got in touch with residents and acquaintances of the victim in Oulu. While they claimed the three entered that had apartment the victim’s home with a chainsaw, the police could not confirm this.

Iltalehti: Ulkomaalainen mies ryöstettiin Vaasassa

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment:  An African 40-year-old man was robbed and assaulted on Saturday in a Vaasa neighborhood, reports tabloid Iltalehti. The attackers, who were 5-6 white Finns between the ages of 20 and 25, started to call the man names like the n-word. After being threatened in public, one of the assailants threw a punch at the man, who then fell on the ground and was kicked. 

Being verbally and physically attacked in public is horrible for anyone but what surprises me, if the report by Iltalehti is accurate, is that the police is treating the matter as a robbery.

Certainly we should not jump to conclusions until the police report is out and the perpetrators have been brought to justice.

However, it is common practice in countries where paramilitary groups roam freely to kidnap their victims at their homes and steal something to show that robbery could be involved.

Once again we must thank the Finnish media for bringing these types of crimes to light. It shows that sensible Finns will not accept this type of behavior in their country.

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Uhri kaadettiin maahan, ja häntä lyötiin ja potkittiin.  Afrikkalaissyntyinen 40-vuotias mies ryöstettiin Ristinummella Vaasassa lauantaina klo 15 jälkeen. Miehen luokse oli tullut 5-6 suomalaista noin 20-25-vuotiasta miestä ja ryhtynyt nimittelemään tätä muun muassa neekeriksi. 

Read whole story.

Etelä-Suomen Sanomat: Ulkomaalaisten rikokset kuohuttavat

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Here is an interesting story about crime and immigrants. Human rights activist and lawyer, Hussein Muhammed, gives his take on the problem. One of the big issues whenever an immigrant commits a crime is that the whole groups is labelled.

One way of lowering crime would be a more effective family reunification policy, which Finland wants to tighten.

Do you agree?

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Maahanmuuttajilla on täysi syy vastustaa rikoksia, koska yhden ulkomaalaisen syyllistyminen lainvastaisuuksiin voi leimata kaikki muutkin, arvioi ihmisoikeusaktivisti ja lakimies Husein Muhammed.

To keep on reading story click here.