discrimination Archives - Page 2 of 15

Anastasiia Diudina helps Ukrainian refugees in Finland

Posted on October 16, 2022 by Migrant Tales

A young and energetic woman called Anastasiia Diudina aims to fight Russian aggression and sees helping Ukrainian refugees as an important part of it. What is surprising is that some of the problems the asylum seekers faced at asylum reception centers in 2015 and beyond are faced by Ukrainians.

While Diudina stresses that the treatment of Ukrainian refugees depends on the asylum reception center, former culprits like Luona, a private company, and the Red Cross are mentioned as poor examples since “they are big organizations.”

“Just like in 2015 and 2016, when people from Iraq and the Middle East came to Finland, it’s important that asylum reception center staffers understand that people are fleeing war, mass killings, genocide are traumatized,” she said. “Many [Ukrainian] refugees have spent weeks inside a cellar while their city was bombarded.”

“Luona, for one, refugees [allege] that they don’t get any humane treatment from the staffers,” Diuidina continued. “At Luona, some refugees have been told to live elsewhere if they aren’t happy with how they are treated. If you are treated poorly [by a worker], you lose trust in those that are supposed to help you.”

The young activist mentioned cultural and language problems between reception center staffers and refugees. She said that many Ukrainians don’t speak English.

“There are long waiting lines to visit the nurse,” Diudina explained. “How to treat diabetes is a good example of how cultural misunderstanding leads to mistrust. In Ukraine, diet is an important part of diabetes treatment even if it is not used as a diabetes treatment in Finland”.

The diabetic does not understand why the reception center does not give him the right food. This may lead him to falsely believe that nobody cares for him, according to her.

Yle wrote about how poor food at Kyyhkylä near Mikkeli was a common source of friction.

The young activist said that many problems could be avoided if there were enough resources to help refugees at reception centers. According to her, staffers are overwhelmed with work.

“Is this the refugee problem?” she asked. “No, it is Migri’s [Finnish Immigration Service].”

**In the face of open warfare, genocide and destruction, Anastasiia Diudina believes it is every Russian’s duty to help Ukrainians.**

Present mistakes come from past mistakes

Remember former Center Party Prime Minister Juho Sipilä’s government when they had to deal with a record number of asylum seekers from mainly Iraq and Afghanistan? With the blessings of the National Coalition Party, Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, and the opposition, Finland passed draconian laws in 2016 to do away with pull factors.

If we are honest, those laws supposed to help asylum seekers and Ukrainian refugees are at the core of the problem. The same arguments used by understaffed and some unqualified staffers at asylum reception centers are made again: We had to do things in a rush, we don’t have the experience.

Diudina explained that there is a shortage of human resources, forcing some to be inflexible and do the minimum that the law requires.

Tariq: Is there justice in Finland? (Part 2)

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Migrant Tales

This is Part 2 of Tariq’s* ordeal in Finland. Go here to read Part 1.

“This is my case:

I have been living in Finland for eleven years. I moved here to be with my wife, and upon arriving, I started to work and study at the same time. After three years in the country, my ex-wife wanted a divorce, and we separated on friendly terms. I lived in Kanta-Häme area for four years.

My ex had a close friend working as a police officer in the Kanta-Häme region, and he was dealing with immigrant cases. I was invited to his office after my divorce and was questioned on the details of my divorce process to see if I still had legal reasons to stay living in Finland. I was working at the time and received a study place shortly after.

I moved to the Helsinki region and started my new life. Later, in Helsinki, I went to the police station to ask for some information. After getting my documents to process my request, the office informed me that there was something written in my info about me that I was completely unaware of and still don’t know exactly what it is. He took my residence permit card and told me to wait. He returned after some minutes with his supervisor, they asked me to follow them inside the station, and I was questioned on issues like what I was doing here since my divorce.

I told them I was studying and had about three months left to complete my graduation. He informed me that the police had canceled my residence permit and that I had thirty days to leave the country or be deported. He took my residence permit away and refused to give it back when I asked.

I asked him whether he had the right to take my permit away, and his answer was that he had the right to do so. I left the police station and went to meet a lawyer. I explained the situation, and she told me he had no right to take my residence card. Immediately she called the police officer that had taken my card away, and she told him that he didn’t have the right to do that by any laws since I hadn’t broken any laws in Finland. He said that he had an order from the Kanta-Häme police to take my permit away on site.

I have been officially asking the police about this order, but I have been denied access to my info here in Finland.

After this incident, I was forced to quit school with three months left. I had to find a job and then apply for a residence permit based on my work contract. I was also denied the permit because my salary fell short of a hundred euros from the minimum, which you have to have to finance my life here. They informed my boss directly that I didn’t have a valid permit and couldn’t work because of that. My boss contacted Migri [Finnish Immigration Service] and told them that I was doing my job, they were happy with me and didn’t understand why I couldn’t get the necessary permit to continue.

I didn’t stay waiting and so went looking for a new job, with a higher salary of about three thousand euros and with that I appealed against their decision, but again they refused. This time, I changed jobs to apply for a residence permit.

Since this time, I have been harassed by the police. For some reason, I just started getting a lot of traffic fines. I received tickets for speeding and reckless driving from the police without evidence, such as dashcam videos. Went many times to court due to these fines since I contested them, but in court, I always lost. The court told me they don’t think the police can lie. Also, during one stop a policeman was shouting and cursing at me when approaching; for this incident, I had a witness in the car with me. I took the fine to the court, where the case went on for seven hours with my lawyer Miro Delgado. The judge ultimately decided that I was fined wrongfully, and the fine was canceled. The two policemen weren’t reprimanded for their behavior or wrongfully giving me the fine. I had to sell my car because of this continuous harassment.

During the time we were going through this process, I started a new relationship, I got married, and was granted a residence permit for family reasons.

In 2016 I applied for citizenship, it normally takes one year to get a decision, but in my case, it took the immigration office three years to give me a negative answer. The negative decision was because I had been legally in the country all this time without a residence permit, which directly resulted from the immigration office’s long processing times and cancellation of my residence permit. That was also the reason for not getting permanent residence in the country.

**Each migrant who survives in Finland deserves a medal for heroism.**

Tariq: Is there justice in Finland? (Part 1)

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Migrant Tales

Tariq* has lived in Finland for over eleven years. If there is a person who has run into complications with the police, Migri (Finnish Immigration Service), and due process, he is one of them.

According to Tariq, his citizenship process has been arbitrarily delayed due to a police fine that was canceled.

“In March last year, the police was called by some security guards for resisting arrest,” Tariq said. “In the first place, security guards cannot arrest you. The police came, they did not hear my side of the story, and they slapped me with a fine.”

Tariq alleged that the security guards had hurt his hand. He wanted to go to the hospital but was not taken there.

“At the time [of this incident], I was applying for Finnish citizenship [a second time],” he continued. “Due to the fine, Migri stopped the application process until the issue was resolved.”

Tariq inquired about the fine around the end of August and found out, to his surprise, that the police had canceled it.

Discrimination in the labor market is a real problem that Finland still doesn’t want to face

Posted on August 28, 2022 by Migrant Tales

Institutional racism is a social ill that Finland has done too little to challenge. One of the areas where it happens mainly uncontested is in the labor market. IYou face many challenges ahead if you are lucky enough to get a job interview with your so-called foreign-sounding name.

Once you get through the door, the question is if you will be treated equally like the white Finnish employees.

Hamiid Hussein is a Finnish citizen who has lived in the country for a long time. He approached Migrant Tales as well as other representatives of the media about a far-right Perussuomalaiset* candidate running for office in the municipal elections who wanted a picture of his family.

You can read about the case here.

Hussein’s most recent complaint is about one of Finland’s biggest driving schools where he is taking a course to become an instructor.

**There is a lot of discrimination in Finland’s labor markets, even at driving schools.**

How institutional racism entrenches at a Finnish school

Posted on May 28, 2022 by Migrant Tales

How does institutional racism survive unchallenged at a Finnish school? An anonymous source got in touch with Migrant Tales and pointed out how structural or institutional racism survives at a Finnish school.

One of the most crucial factors for its survival aren’t surveys and legal ineffective and false assurances against discrimination and racism but what the principal or leadership of the school thinks about such social ills. Is anti-racism a low priority, and does the school management camouflage its racism usually with its silence?

In Finland, according to the source, it is easy to house racist views and seek cover in the protective structural racism infrastructure. One can even get money from the state for anti-discrimination work by throwing out catchphrases like “this will be good for integration.”

In many cases, the promise that “this will be good for integration” is false and misguided and feeds structural racism. Integration, or adaption, is a two-way process. Even so, this is usually forgotten.

The majority is not required to “integrate” but the newcomer is.

**Guiding principles of the EU National Plan Against Racism 2020-2025. One of the many important objectives is to tackle structural racism.**

Here are some of the factors that maintain structural racism at a Finnish school:

Shadow racism in the happiest country

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Migrant Tales

It is quite true that when people come to a new country like Finland, they have a ”honeymoon” period – everything looks new and interesting. The first few months can feel like an extended holiday, and you experience the seasons, the holidays and the culture.

When it came time for me to look for work, and the first year, and then 20 months went by – it was so hard to explain to family and friends far away that there was just no way to find a job. One of my UK friends told me, ”Just take anything – even cleaning, and then other things will come”. They rarely did – whether I set my hopes high or low.

Fast forward another 18 years, and finding work is just as difficult, in fact, even harder for middle-aged people. Over the past winter, I tried looking into some new ideas through the ”Startup” groups, and then the TE office sent my details to the BusinessOulu office.

On the 1st of March, a lady from BusinessOulu called, and introduced herself as a ‘business coach’ and she started to ask me about my recent work and searches. I explained some of the challenges I have had, and almost dropped the phone when I heard her say to me – ”Oh, I think you are too old to work”. A few seconds passed before I reminded her that her own President was older in his mid-70s, but she brushed it off and said ”oh that’s different.”

I guess in Finland, if you are a wealthy and famous man, you have more rights to a job than an immigrant woman without an income.

Another of my challenges has been the ‘Brexit Punishment’ British immigrants get – many officials like to make things difficult for us, regardless of our politics. Finland, via Migri (The Finnish Immigration Service), decreed all British permanent residents reapply for another Residency (plus 54 euros) and have interview, and then wait for a decision. This is currently taking – not weeks, but months! My own is now scheduled to take 14 months.

Getting a job does not scare me, it is what happens after that raises concern

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Migrant Tales

If we look at the many stories of job discrimination that we have published in Migrant Tales, one factor links them: despair and the police, which too often look the other way.

Considering the underwhelming effort the police have made in challenging human trafficking, labor discrimination, hate speech, and other social ills, why would a victim trust the police?

There are too many cases involing the latter social ills and too little done by the authorities. If the situation is dire, and employers can get away relatively easily with exploitation of workers and human trafficking, imagine when more labor migrants come to Finland. Will the police continue to bury its head in the sand and will the media take labor discrimination and exploitation seriously apart from an occasional story?

Migrant Tales has written scores of stories about an ongoing problem: slow due justice.

The police give you permission to pry into a person’s background even if these are inappropriate and offensive

Posted on November 20, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Remember Husein Hamiid when he asked in summer a real estate agent about renting a hotel and restaurant? The real estate agent, who was a Perussuomnalaiset (PS)* municipal candidate for the city of Espoo, started to pry into Hamiid’s life: “What kind of family and relatives do you have? What is your religion? Could you send me a picture of your family? What year did you come to Finland?”

Hamiid, a Finnish citizen who has lived many years in Finland, would not stand for this type of discriminatory behavior. He filed charges against the real estate agent.

To his surprise, the police absolved the real estate agent of any wrongdoing. It argued that there was no discrimination.

I’m surprised that [they did not bring any charges against the real estate agent] when everything is written clearly and in black and white and is a clear-cut case,” said Hamiid. “[The real estate agent] has over 20 years experience as a real estate agent even in Spain and should know better:”

Hamiid added that it was surprising that the police gave the real estate agent the benefit of the doubt and sided with him.

Certainly, a real estate agent has the right to ask about a potential client’s background and rental brokierage agreements. Still, they must abide by non-discrimination legislation, according to the Federation of Real Estate Agency. Does the police ruling of Hamiid’s case mean that we can ask people their religion, pictures of their family? Yes, the police are giving the nod to such inappropriate behavior.

So what are the police’s arguments concerning Hamiid’s charges?

Riikka Purra and her PS cronies want to make discrimination and racism legal

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Migrant Tales

We all know about Perussuomalaiset (PS)* new chairperson Riikka Purra’s radical views on cultural diversity and migration in general. Yes, she’s the one warning about how Muslims are taking over Europe and how brown and black Finns will replace white Finns.

Her latest Tweet below suggests that white Finns should be the only beneficiaries of social welfare, but Finland must reform the constitution to do this. Purra states that she is ready to reform the constitution if she becomes the next prime minister.

The new PS chairperson lives in a time warp constantly attacking windmills. Purra speaks highly of Denmark, the Nordic region’s most Islamophobic country, and hopes to wipe out migrants and minorities with the help of discrimination, social exclusion and far-right nationlism. She can try, but she will fail beceause our ever-growing diversity as a nation is growing and blossoming every day.

The question that all of Purra’s and her party’s hostile attacks against migrants and minorities should raise a question: Are we going to allow it to happen?

Riikka Purra Tweets: “Should we consider changing our social security system that would be based on nationality (taking into account the EU). There are no good options [because the state] is running out of money. Such a change would require, for example, a reform of the constitution so it would not be a simple change of the law.”

Twitter (Ara Malikian): Being from one, two, or many cultures simultaneously

Posted on August 6, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Ara Malikian is a musician that awakens the magic from his violin. Isn’t it surprising when we can travel easily from one country to the next, there are still people who don’t accept that we can build many homes during our lifetime in many countries? We can be from one, two, or many places simultaneously.

What would you call those who discriminate against you based on being from many cultures? In my opinion, such people are in the same league as the worst racists. Like the racist, they too are denying your rights based on your background.

If the Tweet below is anything to go by, Ara Malikian must feel the same way.

He Tweets: “In Lebanon didn’t consider me to be fully “Lebanese” because of my Armenian origin; the Armenians didn’t consider me to be fully “Armenian” because I was born in Lebanon. When I established myself in Europe, they didn’t consider me “European” because I wasn’t born in Europe; it took years to be at peace with myself, accept who I am, and accept being an “eternal” foreigner. I have lived in Spain for 20 years and have Spanish citizenship. They disqualified me from the Latin Grammys for not being sufficiently Latin, considering that I was nominated for one of those Grammys four years ago and had performed at the inauguration gala for three years. Does someone understand this?”

Source: YouTube