On Friday, we read about an assault against a Perussuomalaiset (PS) politician in Jämsänkoski. Pekka Kataja, who was rushed to the hospital to treat his head wounds, broken ribs, and a concussion. The PS politician, who has made a name thanks to his anti-Muslim opinions, claims that the men who attacked him were “Arab-looking” and that the attack was politically motivated.
As we wrote in a previous blog entry, we should do everything possible to condemn and stamp out violence. If the attack against Kataja was politically motivated, this would be a very worrying sign.
But some question marks arise from Kataja’s claims. Some of these are:
Did the “Arab-looking” suspects speak Finnish with an accent?
Kataja has a long track record for his Islamophobic views. In a 2017 Yle election compass, he mentioned as one of his goals was to end “asylum tourism” and that Finland cannot afford to pay billions [of euros] to provide for them;
” Didn’t any red lights start to flash when the two “Arab-looking” suspects asked him to show his ID for a package with party flyers?
Did the suspects speak Finnish with an “Arabic” accent?
The PS believes that the attack was politically motivated. Why would anyone target a political noncelebrity in a small town in Finland?
Another one of these questions is that the attack was politically motivated because he wanted the Jämsä asylum reception center closed.
Speaking to one former resident of the reception center, expressed elation of its closing.
“It was the best news I had heard,” he said.
The “Arab-looking” suspect claim smells like a conspiracy theory of the PS. They have used such campaigns very effectively in the past, as we saw in Oulu with the sexual assault cases.
Thanks to the Tapanila sexual assault case about a month before the parliamentary elections of 2015.
In the last three parliamentary elections, conspiracy theories about sexual assault by foreigners have played an important role in attracting votes.
We have recently read about two cases where security guards use force to handle a passenger that does not have a ticket. In both these cases, there is a link: both are black passengers. Both passengers were also on a transport or at a station operated by the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL).
The first case took place on June 23 in Espoo, while an East African nursing student was escorted violently out of the train. One security guard allegedly held her hand while the other had her in a chokehold.
“It was quite shocking when I saw this recent case,” said the East African nursing student. “I get nervous when I board a train because of what happened to me.”
The woman said that her lawyer has asked the police for the video footage of the incident but they have refused because the case “is still under investigation.”
The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL) announced today that the company plans to arrange “social equality” courses for ticket inspectors, according to Yle.
If the victims of both cases are correct, it exposes what we’ve known for a long time: Some have more rights in our society than others despite the social equality rhetoric we often hear and made possible by our exceptionalism.
Almost two weeks past when a 17-year-old black adolescent was allegedly violently assaulted by security guards for not having a valid ticket. The black adolescent ended up handcuffed and held on the floor while his white friend was allowed to leave.
The violent treatment of the security guards should not surprise us since a comprehensive study in 2018 on ethnic profiling by the University of Helsinki showed how ethnic profiling, especially by security staff, was a source of particular concern.
“Many said [in the study] that security guards were often rude and treated them roughly, even violently,” said the University of Helsinki Professor Suvi Keskinen of one of the ethnic profiling study’s findings.
The two cases in the story are a good opportunity to expose how systemic racism works in Finland.
How many black policemen are there in Finland? What about those that work for security firms? Too few to make a significant impact on policy.
And let’s not forget as well the racist trolling against the victim’s mother on social media.
The confidence of their impunity and ther racist arguments reveals how far some have stooped and how much work there is still to do on the anti-racism front.
What would you say if you were a black East African nursing student in Finland and were aggressively escorted out of a train by two security guards? One held you by the arm, and the other had her in a chokehold.
What about if you are forced out of the train, you end up scraping and bruising your knee and elbow on the ground? And what about if the security guards, who saw your bruises, ordered you to leave the station?
A comprehensive study in 2018 on ethnic profiling by the University of Helsinki showed how ethnic profiling, especially by security staff, was a source of special concern.
“Many said [in the study] that security guards were often rude and treated them roughly, even violently,” said the University of Helsinki Professor Suvi Keskinen of one of the ethnic profiling study’s findings.
One migrant told Migrant Tales that some ticket inspectors can act in a racist manner. “They can be racist because they profile you [because you are not white],” he added. “The worst of the lot can sometimes be the non-white Finnish ticket inspectors.”
The unfortunate incident happened to the black woman on a local train one stop before her stop at Koivohovi in Espoo. The reason? Her phone went dead, and therefore could not show her monthly pass to the inspector.
“I pleaded with the inspector and later with the security guards to allow me to charge my phone so I could show them my ticket (see picture below).
The monthly pass ticket that a passenger could not show to the inspector of security guards because her phone went dead. She had a charger, but the security guards would not allow her to charge her phone. The whole incident could have been avoided if the passenger had connected her phone and charger to a socket.
Finnish railway operator VR and Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL) require passengers to have their tickets handy even if their phone is dead. In such cases, however, the passenger can be fined but can annul the fine if the person can prove later that he or she had a valid ticket.
VR and HSL have a 5-euro charge for this service.
So what’s the issue? How about if we start from the hostile treatment that the black woman received from the security guards and the ticket inspector who ordered them to get her off the train?
“When I asked the inspector if I could charge my phone, she responded ‘no, no, no,'” she continued. “As she is checking tickets, there are two security guards behind her and she points to me, telling them that I did not have a ticket.”
The woman pleaded with the inspector and security guards to let her plug her phone into a socket but it was to no avail.
“Everything started to get violent when a drunk man by the door overhead what was happening and told the guards that I had no choice but to walk home,” she said. “I was then forced physically off the train [at Kauniainen a two-minute train ride to my final station].”
As the woman was being forced off the train, one security guard held her by the arm while the other had her in a chokehold.
“I told them that, se sattuu mua (you are hurting me), really loudly. Let me go you are hurting me!” she said. “Just as I stepped out of the train I twisted my ankle and fell on the ground scraping my knee and elbow which were now bleeding. My shoes, glasses, and phone were all scattered on the found all about me..”
The woman said that while she was being escorted off the train, a young man started to film what was happening.
“They [security guards] ordered me to leave the station but I told them that I just landed on my knee and I am in pain. How do you expect me to walk home?”
The woman still pleaded with guards asking them to allow her to charge her phone so she could board the train to her last stop two minutes away. Treating her in a demanding way, the guards ordered her to leave.
“Have a good day learn how to behave,” they said and started to escort her from the station.
Noticing that she could not walk because her knee was bleeding and in pain, the woman decided not to comply. She turned back sat on a platform bench. “How can you ask me to walk home [in this state],” she told the security guards.
Since the woman would not comply with the security guards’ orders, they called the police. They waited for two hours before the police arrived.
“When the police came, I stood up, but I noticed they weren’t interested in hearing my side of what happened,” she continued. “So I just sat and started to weep.”
The woman asked the police if the police could see that she was bleeding and hurt. The police were unresponsive. They asked her to leave the platform and station. “We don’t have any legal obligation to charge your phone,” the police responded to the woman’s plea so she could show her train ticket. “We want you to leave this platform now.”
The police gave her an ultimatum: to leave in two minutes or be taken to a detention cell at the police station.
“As the police were threatening to take me to a detention center, the young man who had recorded the whole incident spoke up.
“I have recorded everything,” he told the police. “They [the security guards] were very harsh to this woman. I cannot understand why you are threatening to detain her if she is the one who was abused [by the guards]?”
The woman told the police that they could detain her if they wished. At least she could charge her phone at the police station. The police said it was impossible to charge her phone at the police station.
In the end, the police offered a sensible option to the hurt and distraught woman by taking her home. They told her that the security guards will file charges against her for resisting.
“I didn’t resist,” she told the police. “I will file charges against them for assaulting me.”
Incredibly, all of this could have been avoided with little understanding, which goes a long way in such situations. All it would have taken was to plug the phone into a socket and allow the woman to show her ticket.
It would probably take two to three minutes at the most.
Habiba Ali, a Social Democrat candidate for parliament and city councilor for Espoo, was stopped on Saturday by a security guard at the Entresse Shopping Center’s Lidl and wrongly suspected of shoplifting a can of tuna fish. Ali asked the security guard, who treated her with respect, why she would shoplift a can of tuna if she just purchased a lot of food from the market.
She emptied her pockets and presto, no can of tuna fish.
Two employees of Lidl did not. According to Ali, they smiled and mocked her in a demeaning way.
Ali said that she has never been humiliated in such a way in public. It was the first time she had ever been stopped by a security guard and suspected of shoplifting.
“You cannot imagine how embarrassing it was for me and stopped by the guard and two Lidl employees,” she said. “I’ll never forget how one of the employees doubted my word and mocked me. She claimed that I had put the can of tuna fish back on the shelf.”
A lot of things have happened since that incident at Lidl. The general manager of the company called Ali and apologized on behalf of the company for what had happened.
“I asked the general manager that I want to discuss what happened and meet him personally together with the employee that treated me in a demeaning way,” she added.
Ali said it was important for People of Color to stand up for their rights and to speak out if they encounter unjust treatment.
Bad luck and alleged ethnic profiling by the Finnish Border Guard at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport led to the detention of Christian Heumi Kabon, a Cameroonian who plays for that country’s national team. He ended up detained at the Metsälä immigration removal center in Helsinki for 18 days, from October 30 to November 16.
At the Metsälä immigration removal center, a detained person cannot leave the premises. For many, the removal center is the last place where they are kept before being deported out of the country.
Cyrille Belinga had invited his friend Kabon to visit him in Helsinki. He bought him a one-way ticket to Helsinki from Lisbon, where he had entered the country legally. Portugal and Finland are part of the Schengen area, which means relatively free travel without border controls.
“I told him that I would pick him up at the airport on Tuesday [October 30],” said Belinga. “Cameroonians call each other by their nicknames. This is why Christian did not remember right off the bat my real name when asked by customs officials.”
Belinga claims that the only reason why agents stopped him was because he is black. It is a good example of racism, according to him. Legally, he had a right to travel freely in the Schengen area of which Finland is a signatory.
“My friend could not tell the border guards my real name and to top it off, I had lost my phone on that day,” he continued. “So I could not be reached when the border agent called me.”
As a result, Kabon ended up at Metsälä where he awaited deporation proceedings.
Thanks to the efforts of lawyer Miro del Gaudio of Lex Gaudius, the hapless Cameroonian football player was released after complaints and an appeal to the adminisrative court of Helsinki.
The Finnish police servicer held a seminar on Wednesday on migrant surveillance. NGOs like Stop Deportations and Refugees Welcome expressed outrage and published some PowerPoint slides shown at the seminar by the Helsinki Police department responsible for immigration matters.
Sanna Valtonen of the Refugees Welcome NGO expressed dismay with the material used by the police to depict migrants and asylum seekers.
“My first reaction was disbelief,” she said. “No NGO present at the seminar reacted to these slides except for us [Stop Deportations and Refugees Welcome].”
Ethnic profiling is illegal in Finland but the seminar shows that the police still don’t get it and persist in having antiquated and racist views of migrants and minorities.
Linda Hyökki wrote in a story published today in Migrant Tales: “Police inspector Heli Aaltonen showed a tasteless series of PowerPointe slides representing the ‘most common’ [ethnic traits of its] customers.”
Even if Aaltonen’s presentation aimed at being funny, it fell flat on its face because of the slides’ racist depiction of people of different backgrounds.
Aaltonen’s attitude shows a common problem when white people like her want to try out their sense of humor at the cost of migrants and ethnic minorities.
Go here to read some of the racist depictions of different migrant groups.
Hyökki writes about Aaltonen’s PowerPoint slide presentation: “The depictions were bluntly racist, enforcing stereotypes of immigrants from different backgrounds such as Russians/Estonians being alcoholics who live in illegal dorms and Africans being drug dealers. Moreover, they were also drawing from anti-Muslim discourses that have become – apparently widely accepted even within institutional contexts –hence offering the perfect proof for what we can call structural Islamophobia:
Migrant Tales insight: This story was received today by us from Linda Hyökki.
On Wednesday, October 10, the NGO “Stop Deportations” and Sanna Valtonen from “Refugees Welcome” shared on social media pictures that shocked anti-racist activists, and indeed generally anyone who is concerned about ethnic profiling. In a seminar named “Lost in Helsinki”[1], organized by the department responsible for immigration matters at the Helsinki Police, inspector Heli Aaltonen showed a tasteless series of powerpoint slides representing the “most common” customers. The series was supposed to be funny (?), or a lousy attempt to commemorate the national day of Finnish literature[2], as the slides depicted the “Modern-day 7 brothers”, a reference to one of the most known Finnish novels and written by Aleksis Kivi, the national author of Finland. In these slides, all 7 “customers” were named after figures from the novel.
The depictions were bluntly racist, enforcing stereotypes of immigrants from different backgrounds such as Russians/Estonians being alcoholics who live in illegal dorms and Africans being drug dealers. Moreover, they were also drawing from anti-Muslim discourses that have become – apparently widely accepted even within institutional contexts –hence offering the perfect proof for what we can call structural Islamophobia:
“Timo”: from Somalia; married to three wives; drinks alcohol occasionally; has come to Finland after his wife (wife has a Finnish citizenship and used family reunification to get Timo to the country); divorced his wife after receiving residency permit; after his divorce, Timo used family reunification to get his other wife to Finland; Timo’s third wife has been brought to Finland by using the identity of the first wife; has children with all three wives.
“Eero”; an asylum seeker from Iraq; lied about his age; received a negative decision regarding his asylum due to groundless application; Secret Police has given a statement about Eero that he is a threat to the national security
Aaltonen also added a profile of a female customer “Aino”, borrowing the famous figure from the Finnish national epic poetry work compiled by Elias Lönnrot. “Aino” was depicted as a girl wearing a headscarf, so clearly referring to her religious affiliation as a Muslim. She was supposed to be a stay-home wife – as allegedly staying inside doors is something that her “religion obliges” her to do –, a victim of domestic violence, someone who is inactive in the job market and cannot even communicate due to lack of language skills. Oh yes, she was also supposedly a victim of human trafficking.
These are devastating examples about how embedded racism and Islamophobia is in Finnish state connected institutions. With such “ethnic profiles”, inspector Aaltonen as an official representative of Finnish Police did nothing less than spread bigotry, prejudices and consequently contributed to hate speech and victimization of minorities. It goes without saying, that associating certain ethnicities or nationalities with Islamophobic stereotypes puts all members of these ethnic groups under the radar of bigots? The presentation reproduced images of Muslim men being violent abusers of women, deceiving and misusing Finnish social services and state funded financial aid, notwithstanding the images of “backward” Muslim women as oppressed not only by their husbands but also by their religion – Islam.
It is time that the Finnish Police issue an official statement distancing the institution from any racist or Islamophobic ideas about minorities and immigrants residing in our country. It is time, that we openly discuss the extend to which racism and anti-Muslim prejudices are a structural problem. If this is the “contribution” of the Finnish police to intercultural understanding, social cohesion and security of all citizens and residents in the country, then how are religious and ethnic minorities ever supposed to trust the professionality of the police in dealing with hate crime when all their official representative Aaltonen has done is to spread more hate.
The Stopped research and journalism project, Finland’s first-ever comprehensive study on ethnic profiling, published its finding Tuesday. While there have been scores of stories published about ethnic profiling on publications like Migrant Tales, there is nothing surprising by the study’s findings.
If there is something that surprised us it was that ethnic profiling, despite continuous denials by the police, is so widespread that it is a serious problem.
One reason why ethnic profiling is so widespread in Finland is because it is condoned and encouraged politically by politicians, even ministers.
The big question is what will the police, Finnish Border Guards and security guards do to tackle ethnic profiling? Taking into account the anti-immigration atmosphere in Finland, it is clear that such measures will take time and happen slowly.
Here are some of the conclusions of the study on ethnic profiling:
“The Finnish Alien’s Act (where ethnic profiling is clearly stated that it is illegal) does not give a sufficient criterion for reasonable suspicion, and thus the police are not required to specify the grounds for their checks. The subsequent wide discretionary power leads police to use their intuition or ‘gut feeling,’ discussed as tacit knowledge in the research, to identify targets of control.”
Does the Finnish police service have a racism problem? Remember in June when a scoop by Long Playexposed a secret Finnish police Facebook group that dwelt in racist and bigoted comments? It wasn’t just any Facebook group since it consisted of over 2,800 membersor about one-third of Finland’s police service.
National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehminen tweets below: “We resolved the matter of [the secret] Facebook [page]. We have taken official steps, and others are ongoing [to solve this matter]. I don’t accept racism or discrimination in any shape or form.”
Credible? In a statement, the police condemn all forms of racism and discrimination, states that it has updated its gender equality a non-discrimination plan as well as its guidelines on how the police show participate in social media platforms. Other steps include:
•”A new equality and diversity plan for the police was approved on 26 June 2017
•The guidelines on police activity on the social media have been updated
•Since 1 December 2017, the police have also adopted a so-called ethical channel, which enables anonymous whistle blowing on unethical behaviour for the police force’s own staff
•Mandatory social media training for all police personnel is under preparation, which will draw particular attention to the obligation of the police to observe the rules of good conduct
•The values of the police have been included as part of the development discussions of all police employees up to 2018
•The case has been considered by the police’s national management group – all police units have been instructed to intervene on a zero-tolerance basis in cases of racism, discrimination, or other inappropriate behaviour.
The National Police Board will closely monitor the need for further follow-up measures.”
While this is the least that we could expect from the National Police Board in light of what happened, they fall far too short and only aim to maintain the status quo. Considering how many police were members of the Facebook group, it is surprising that no charges were filed by the state prosecutor and that only one, yes, one, police officer was handed “a serious written admonition for inappropriate conduct in an unofficial, closed Facebook group.”
Were yesterday’s [Saturday’s] spot checks [at Puhos] necessary? Were they implemented with respect or to humiliate them?
Abdi Muhis
Migrant Tales visited Sunday the Puhos shopping center of Eastern Helsinki and asked people, and business establishments after the police, National Border Guards, Regional Administrative Agencies (AVI), Customs, Rescue Department, and the City of Helsinki health inspectors carried out spot checksthe previous day.
The spot checks didn’t involve all business establishments at the Puhos shopping center but some.
A Somali called Appa, alleges and was surprised that the police with dogs tried to go to the mosque.
The police carrying out spot checks in a coffee shop next to the mosque.
“There were about 15 police and three dogs and we said they could not go to the mosque with dogs and shoes,” said Appa. “The police were disrespectful. I asked one policeman what he’s doing and he responded that ‘this is our country and can ask for your identification.'”
Appa said that everyone who came or went to the mosque was registered by the police.
Go 
