Far-right parties Archives - Page 16 of 37

Finland & Cultural Diversity 2012*

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Migrant Tales

If 2011 was a watershed year for Finland with the historic rise of a hostile party against immigrants and visible minorities in last year’s parliamentary elections, 2012 will be seen as a bittersweet turning point for the Perussuomalaiset (PS).

The year will be remembered as a very violent one for immigrants as well. During “Black February,” three Muslims died under violent circumstances in a span of about three weeks in the cities of Oulu and Espoo.

There was no shortage of news about immigrants and minorities in Finland. Some of these were: fines for hate speech to PS politicians like MP Jussi Halla-aho; Helena Eronen’s blog entry suggesting armbands for immigrants; racial profiling complaints to the Ombudsman of Minorities; Migrant Tales got deactivated for about 13 hours without warning from WordPress.

Rebecka Holm, 14, who was awarded the Red Cross Award on the UN Day Against Racism. Holm denounced racial harassment against her friends and herself and wrote about it to Swedish -language daily HBL. She is a good example for immigrants and visible minorities living in Finland.

Visits to Migrant Tales during the year rose by 70% versus 2011.

What grade would Finland receive for promoting and defending cultural diversity in 2012? If the grade was a 5 (below average) in 2011, this year it would go up a tad to +5.

Below is a quarter-by-quarter account of what made news on the immigration and visible minority front in Finland during the year:

First quarter (January-March)

Without a doubt, the biggest story in the first quarter of the year was the presidential elections of January. After the historic victory of the PS in 2011, which won 39 seats in parliament compared with 5 previously, all eyes were on its chairman and hopeful, Timo Soini. Would he repeat the party’s 2011 election result?

The presidential election turned out to be a sour disappointment for the PS. Not only did an openly gay presidential Green Party candidate, Pekka Haavisto, beat Soini but also another anti-EU Center Party’s hopeful Paavo Väyrynen.

The election showed that voters had started to turn their backs on the PS’ anti-EU and anti-immigration rhetoric. Soini’s poor showing (9.4%) and Väyrynen’s better showing (17.5%) confirm the latter. The next hurdle for the PS would be the municipal elections of October 28.

Migrant Tales was cited during the presidential election by Sveriges Radio.

Black February, which involved the death of three Muslims, a suicide and an injured man, started on January 30 in Oulu after eighteen-year-old Abdirashid Jirde fled from three Finns who barged into his home. Fearing for his safety, the young Somali leaped unsuccessfully from his sixth-floor apartment to his neighbor’s balcony.

His brother, Absie Jirde, wrote a letter about his brother’s death that was published on Migrant Tales after the tragedy.

This picture sent by the brother of the victim (baby) was sent to Migrant Tales by the brother of the victim.

On February 17 Migrant Tales was tipped off about the death of a second Somali youth, Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi, who died violently at the hands of a white Finn. Both the assailant and the victim knew each other.

The second Muslim to lose his life violently in Black February was Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi, 18. The eighteen-year-old youth was a Manchester United fan.

An Espoo District Court sentenced Abdulahi’s killer in July to a six-year jail term for manslaughter.

Migrant Tales spoke to Abdisalam’s father about the death of his son.

The final chapter of Black February took place the day after on Sunday at an Oulu pizzeria after Abdulahi’s tragic death, when a white Finn shot and killed one worker and wounded another one. The killer took his life after the shooting.

On the night of the tragic events that happened in Oulu, PS councilman Tommi Rautio wrote on his Facebook page the following comment: “If Janne is the one [who shot the foreigners at the pizzeria] then we should give Janne a medal.”

Rautio’s comment caused him to be sacked from the PS in March and convicted and fined 120 euros by a local court for inciting ethnic hatred.

Setting aside the tragic events that marked Black February, few politicians denounced publicly what happened except for Olli Mäntylahti, a National Coalition Party candidate for the city of Helsinki. Migrant Tales was, together with Mäntylahti, the first ones to break the news about Rautio’s comments on Facebook.

Migrant Tales was the target of a number of attacks at the end of the first quarter. The first attack came from a megaboard site called Ylilauta, which was followed by a deactivation by WordPress of the blog on March 27 for about 13 hours.

Writes Mark: “Migrant Tales is under attack. The blog’s founder is receiving threats of violence, is being defamed and ridiculed in public forums, is being harassed even to the point of having his workplace invaded by defamatory communications. It is not an easy time for Enrique or his family…”

While some were dancing prematurely on Migrant Tales’ grave, we received an apology from WordPress for the mistake. Making sure that we never have to suffer such censorship again, Migrant Tales moved to its present site on May 17.

Freddy Van Wonterghem, a PS Kotka city councilman, was convictedby a court on March 30 for inciting ethnic hatred. On another blog, this editor asked Van Wonterghem if he regretted what he wrote.

“I don’t regret what I wrote…” he responded. “Perhaps [at the most] it wasn’t nicely said.”

Second quarter (April-June)

The biggest stories during this quarter were: Helena Eronen’s blog entry suggesting that immigrants should start wearing armbands, and a Supreme Court ruling that slapped Halla-aho with a fine for defaming a religion and inciting ethnic hatred.

As a result of the court ruling, Halla-aho was forced to resign in June as chairman of the administration committee.

The Supreme Court sentence turned out to be a showdown between Soini’s Rural Party and Halla-aho’s Suomen Sisu faction. Halla-aho suggested that MP Juho Eerola should replace him as chairman of the administration committee.

Soini’s candiate, MP Pirkko Mattila, was elected by the parliamentary group. The result was a clear defeat for the PS Counterjihadists.

Eronen knew she was asking for trouble when she published her infamous blog entry on ethnic profiling.

What did she write?

You’ll find the original blog entry number eighteen on MP James Hirivsaari’s website: “If every foreigner were required to use an armband of his/her national background, the police could immediately spot whether that ‘aha, that is a Muslim from Somalia’ or ‘aha. that is a beggar from Romania.’ Muslims could [use sleeve badges] with a half moon…Russians [with] a hammer and sickle, Kampucheans could have field mines, a burger [could be used to distinguish] Americans…”

Eronen’s story, which was widely covered by the Finnish media, spread rapidly to Russia, Sweden and other countries.

Eronen, who openly supported the far-right Muutos 2011 party, resigned in August as Hirvisaari’s aide. There was speculation that one reason why she resigned was because Hirvisaari’s wife suspected her of having an affair with her boss.

The Council for Mass Media in Finland (JSN) exonerated Kirkko&Kaupunki in May after a cartoon published on December 2011 mocking a group of Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MPs. It reads: “A Merry Christmas to you all Finnish heterosexuals and white conservatives! We wish the rest a shitty Christmas!”

Setting aside the contempt that the PS has for immigrants and visible minorities, Finland’s media was a constant target of attack by the party, especially newspapers like Turun Sanomat, which reported on Eronen’s sleeve badge blog entry.

Attempts by the PS to tell newspapers what and how they should write about the PS is a good example of the party’s anti-democratic credentials. PS members like Matti Putkonen and MP Halla-aho expressed on a number of occasions their anger with the media.

PS MP Olli Immonen, a hardline Counterjihadist, announced that he would boycot YLE “for a while.” Instead of answering difficult questions posed by reporters, the response of some PS members is to avoid the media altogether.

A clear indication of the growing influence of the extremist Suomen Sisu wing of the PS, was the naming in May of Matias Turkkila as the new editor-in chief of the party’s newspaper and web page.

If there is a person who has helped spread Halla-aho’s hate speech in Finland, that person is Turkkila. He’s the editor of anti-immigration hate site called Hommaforum which is closely related to Scripta, Halla-aho’s blog.

Other stories that Migrant Tales reported were Finland’s first suspected terrorism case involving Somalis, ethnic profiling complaints by immigrants to the Ombudsman of Minorities, an elderly Somali woman who got assaulted at a Helsinki metro station, the costly saga of family reunification, and www.migranttales.net begins on May 17.

Third quarter (July-September)

As Anders Breivik was convicted by an Oslo court to 21 years for the murder of 77 innocent victims on July 22, 2011, Peter Mangs, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Mälmö court in Sweden on two counts of murder and five attempted murders. He was finally sentenced in November after undergoing psychological tests, which showed him to be sane.

Another story that ignited debate was a movie about “black” Marshal Carl Mannerheim, Finland’s George Washington. One of the aims of Erkko Lyytinen, the movie’s producer, was to challenge challenge Mannerheim’s sacred image.

Black and white Marshal Mannerheim spurred a lot of debate in Finland.

The Per-Looks blog, which outraged some PS party members, was widely debated in the media. While the pictures published on Per-Looks aim to give an image that the PS are a bunch of Finnish hillbillies, the blog gave the hostile party to immigrants a taste of its own medicine.

By September the heat of the municipal elections could be clearly felt. A very good blog, Kunnolisvaalit 2012,** appeared exposing the far-right and anti-immigration stands of candidates running for city council. While the majority of the candidates on the blog belong to the PS, there are others from parties like Muutos 2011, Center Party, and National Coalition Party.

Risto Helin of the PS, who got elected to the Vaasa city council, is pictured with a “white power blood & honor” on Kunnollisvaalit 2012 blog.

Another PS municipal candidate that got elected from Kotka, Amon Rautiainen, got in trouble in September for suggesting on his Facebook page that government ministers should be shot and that Muslims should be boiled alive.

Despite constant denials by Soini that the PS wants to weed out racists from running in the municipal election, the party’s policy towards refugees shows that the latter is only lip service. The party’s municipal election program clearly states that municipalities should not accept refugees. The best place to help these people is in crowded refugee camps where “they would be culturally” closer to home, according to the party.

In the end of September, a poll published by YLE shows that the PS will be the biggest winners of the municipal elections. The poll sees the PS getting 17.2% of the votes versus 5.4% in 2008 with the Center Party being the biggest loser.

Fourth quarter (October-December)

The biggest story in this quarter and probably the whole year was the municipal election result. Contrary to what the September poll suggested, the clear winner of the election was the Center Party (18.7%) and the biggest losers were the Greens (8.5%). The PS, which was expected to do well, won 12.3% of the vote. Even if the result was a disappointment to Soini, the party was able to raise the number of city councilpersons by 752 to 1,195.

The National Coalition Party (21.9%) and the Social Democrats (19.6%) came in fist and second place, respectively.

Campaigns like iCount that aim to activate the immigrant vote were active during the election.

The 2012 municipal elections were historic for Finland since a record number were candidates, according to YLE. The highest number of immigrant candidates can be found in the Social Democratic Party (118) followed by the National Coalition Party (81), Left Wing Alliance (56), Green Party (55) and Center Party (around 50).

Unconfirmed reports see the immigrant vote doubling to about 40% in the recent elections. If this is true, it shows that Finland’s anti-immigration climate has empowered immigrants to act.

Contrarily, PS Counterjihadist candidates as well as others that were strongly anti-immigration and against cultural diversity did well in the municipal elections.

PS councilman Harri Turtianen of Kemi is one examples of many of how intolerance has grown and become more acceptable in Finland.

About two weeks after the election, PS MP Hirvisaari said that his party did poorly in the municipal elections because it wasn’t as outspoken on immigration issues as before the 2011 parliamentary elections, according to YLE.

While the campaign in the municipal election became more vicious and anti-immigration rhetoric picked up as October 28 neared, their hostile campaign against immigrants and cultural diversity continued after the election. A draft law spearheaded by Halla-aho aims to make deportations of convicted immigrants mandatory. Three PS MPs have drafted legislation to make begging illegal in public places, and MP Vesa-Matti Saarakkala aims to ban male circumcision in Finland.

Veteran National Coalition Party politician Pertti Salolainen got himself in hot water in early December when he said that on a TV talk show that American Jews have vast control over the wealth and media in the United States. Salolainen, who is vice chairman of the foreign policy committee, felt that pro-Israel lobby groups in the U.S. prevented Washington from taking a neutral stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Suspected hate-crime cases were published on December 19. Last year, 2010 figures were made public on October 27.

A total of 918 suspected hate crimes were reported in Finland in 2011, which is a 7% rise from 860 cases in the previous year, according to the Police College of Finland. Compared with the previous years, suspected hate crime cases have not risen significantly, according to researcher Iina Sahramäki.

Mark published two good blog entries after the Police College of Finland published its hate crime cases for last year. The first one, Approaching hate crimes in Finland: problem solver or angry boss and the one that followed, Police College of Finland: are they perpetuating hate, asks some tough questions of the police concerning hate crimes.

He writes: “What adds to the injury is that people rely on these statistics to create profiles of particular national groups as being much more racist than they actually are, and much more racist than Finns. So, hate crime statistics that are presented in such a way that they actually perpetuate hate crime!”

Finnish law doesn’t recognize hate crimes as crimes per se.

In an exclusive interview with Migrant Tales in December, Rainer Hiltunen, Ombudsman for Minorities head of office, said that talks have taken place with the Finnish police to draft new guidelines and more effective monitoring to ensure that ethnic profiling doesn’t happen.

The new guidelines are expected to be in force in 2013.

** The blog can be read here.

The same face of intolerance lives amongst us today

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Migrant Tales

When I was growing up in the 1970s, one of the matters that followed me around was the constant news of the mass murder and cemetery silence imposed by ruthless Latin American dictatorships. If you lived in one of those countries where human rights violations were the rule, you were confronted by two options: take up arms or be quiet.

Read “Uncovering Crimes of Argentina’s Junta” here.

Much of the bloodshed that took place in Latin America during that tumultous decade could have been averted if there would have existed democratic institutions and respect for civil liberties.

It is a tragedy that millions of people were denied the right to express their opinions democratically.

In many respects, but in a different context, the same type of exclusion is taking place in many parts of Europe today. Ethnic groups like the Roma, Somalis, Turks, blacks, Muslims, Jews and other minorities are still treated like third-class citizens and with contempt in some countries.

Even if these groups are not persecuted in the same way like political dissidents in Latin America were four decades ago, they are treated with contempt. We can never be at peace as long as we allow poverty, ignorance and apathy to silence whole groups.

In many respects, but in a different context, too many Finnish politicians have shown too little interest for the rights and welfare of immigrants and visible minorities. The fact that we grant asylum to refugees and then force them to live separated for years from their families is one of many examples of their scorn.

If we look at the arguments used by right-wing anti-immigration extremist groups in Europe and Finland today, they have the same aim that autocratic regimes had to socially exclude and silence whole groups.

How long can a minority be forced to remain silent? In the United States, it took centuries before Rosa Parks ignited the Civil Rights Movement in December 1955. Hopefully different minorities in Europe react much faster.

The most important lesson we can learn from social movements like the above is that change must come from the group.

One of the oddest arguments one hears in Finland every now and then is that the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS), a party that is the breathing ground for right-wing extremism, has helped integrate troubled politicians who are multiculturally challenged into the system.

Such a preposterous argument is, in my opinion, only a justification for our fascination with modern-day fascism.

Democracy and civil rights is not a right that one group can own at the expense of others.

Keeping it from other groups is sowing the seeds of tomorrow’s violence.

The PS’ anti-immigration message suffers a hard blow

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Migrant Tales

Despite the fact that the debate in Finland on immigrants and immigration has taken a turn for the worse in some respects, it’s not as bad as it used to be before the April 2011 parliamentary elections and when Anders Breivik went on his murderous rampage on July 22, 2011. While anti-immigration politicians still want to inflame public debate, their message no longer carries the same weight as before.

Certainly there are still many Finns who believe that what these anti-immigration politicians say is true but not as many as such politicians would like.

Take a look at this video clip of a then-confident Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho being interviewed in 2009 on Voice Häräämö. Why doesn’t he appear any longer on such programs as an “immigration expert (sic!)?”

Answer: loss of credibility and because reporters are more critical than before of their message.

It must be frustrating for politicians, who base their popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric, to see their message fall on its face after being cut off at the knees by time.

This situation especially worries the biggest anti-immigration loudmouths of the party like MP James Hirvisaari, who recently claimed the PS did poorly in the municipal elections because it wasn’t outspoken enough on immigration issues as before.

Is this the main reason for the PS’ poor showing due to the credibility of its anti-immigration message? Did they do poorly in the municipal elections because of the crackpot stuff they say and do to gain attention?

Most likely.

If anti-immigration politicians of the PS are interviewed by the media today, it’s doubtful that any sensible person would take them seriously never mind any good reporter.

The same ogres that these politicians unleashed against immigrants follow them around like ghosts: racism, fascism and far-right ideology.

Finland is slowly but surely learning to distinguish between what is and what isn’t racism, what is and what isn’t far-right ideology.

This is a positive matter, but a lot more work needs to be done to rid this menace that threatens our society today.

Turun Sanomat: Finland Democrats eye PS’ anti-immigration vote

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Migrant Tales

The Finland Democrats, which bases its political agenda on the far-right Sweden Democrats, aims to become a new party and compete for the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s anti-immigration vote, reports Turun Sanomat. The creation of a new anti-immigration party reveals the ever-negative debate in Finland surrounding immigrants and immigration.

The PS is the only party that has attracted large number of votes due to its anti-immigration stance. Anti-immigration groups like Vapauspuolue, Muutos 2011 and other so-called taxi parties have failed to lure large number of votes.

A “taxi party” in Bolivia is one that is so small that all of its members can fit inside a taxi.

Click here to see original Facebook post.

The new party, which will be spearheaded by Jussi Yli-Paavola, established a new Facebook group Monday where the Finland Democrats “aim to defend the rights of Finns…a poor country that cannot be the social welfare office of EU brokers and Africans. We have to act before it’s too late!!”

An anonymous Finland Democrats’ member denied on Turun Sanomat that PS MPs like James Hirvisaari were going to form part of the new party. He said, however, that PS members are welcome to join the Finland Democrats if they wished.

Click here to see original Facebook post.

Apart from Hirvisaari, other far-right anti-immigrant PS members such as Freddy Van Wonterghem, Harri Tauriainen, Jani Viinikainen and Jani Salomaa are speculated to form part of the new party, according to some social media sites.

Click here to see original Facebook post.

Even if the Finland Democrats will need more than luck to challenge the PS, it is a worrying sign how a small-but-vocal group of Finns aim to make far-right ideology and intolerance acceptable in this country.

UPDATE (7:45pm Finnish time): Turun Sanomat published a story earlier today based on a bogus statement sent supposedly by the Finland Democrats. The statement claimed that a number of PS members, including James Hirvisaari, had joined the new party. The updated story in Turun Sanomat, which was cited by Migrant Tales, has a Finland Democrat source that denies any PS members such as Hirvisaari, Van Wonterghem, Tauriainen, Viinikainen and Salomaa joining the Finland Democrats.

Thus the aim of the bogus statement was to fool Turn Sanomat and apparently punish it for publishing an armband story written by Hirvisaari’s former aide, Helena Eronen, back in April.

The SD (and PS) are far-right anti-immigration parties

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Migrant Tales

There’s an interesting opinion piece on Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter about the Swedish Democrats (SD) and the spread of fascism or neofascism in the Scandinavian country. While classifying a party as “fascist” may be problematic, there are certain ideological characteristics that expose its true political colors.

Historian and journalist Henrik Arnstad writes: “Fascism is a deeply problematic word…But it is the name of a specific political ideology, which for the first time represented today in the Swedish parliament.”

In Finland we have the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which is a close ideological relative of the SD. There are many factors that unite as well as separate both parties. Nationalism is one of these.

Another matter that draws them together is their suspicion of cultural diversity. As Arnstad writes about fascism, the SD (and many members of the PS) see cultural diversity as a threat to their perceived homogenous society.

The far-right in the PS, led by PS MP’s like Jussi Halla-aho, fear – like the SD – the loss of the country’s near-white society due to immigration.

Even if the SD and Counterjihadists in the PS bend over backwards to show their pro-Israeli stances, the Jewish community in Sweden fears that it is only a question of time when their true anti-Semitic nature is revealed.

“We know where these people are coming from,” Lena Posner, president of the Official Council of Jewish communities in Sweden, was quoted as saying on Haaretz. “They [SD] are Nazi sympathizers who, under their jackets, are still wearing their brown shirts.”

“They love Israel because that sort of rhetoric is in tune with their hatred for Muslims;” she adds. “That’s it.”

It would be naive to think that the PS does not house the same anti-Semitic and far-right feelings than the SD.

Paavo Lipponen does not see far right threatening Finland

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Migrant Tales

There are few politicians in Finland who speak out against the far-right threat in Finland. One of these is former Social Democrat Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, who expressed concern about the issue in a seminar in Helsinki on deportation of Jews to Germany in World War 2, reports Iltalehti.

Lipponen expressed surprise that some parties use “racial hygiene” as part of their political agenda. The concept was exploited by Nazi Germany from 1933 and led to the mass murder of millions of Europeans, especially Jews.

Lipponen does not, however, consider the far right to be a threat to Finland.

While Lipponen may state that far-right ideology isn’t a big threat to Finland, some would disagree. Determining what is a threat to our society depends a lot on your perspective. If you are middle class, white and employed, the far-right wing of a party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) isn’t a threat.

If, however, you ask certain immigrant groups and visible minorities, the answer may be much different.

Here’s a Suomen Sisu t-shirt that shows the group’s hostility towards cultural diversity.

Lipponen used Saul Schubak, the vice chairman of the National Coalition Party’s youth wing, as an example of how public opinion has hardened in Finland. Schubak wrote on Facebook that “inferior people” should not get child allowance.

The PS is the party in parliament with the biggest number of anti-immigration fanatics, who base their views on racial hygiene, eugenics and cultural myths like ethnic superiority.

If Migrant Tales had the opportunity to draw a cartoon about PS chairman Timo Soini’s relationship with these far-right politicians, the setting would be a concentration camp in World War 2 with some infamous commandants like Rudolf Hoess and Franz Ziereis, hiding behind Soini.

Soini would state with a poker face: “Anti-Semitism isn’t an issue in our party.”

More Mamukriit-Looks candidates of Finland

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Migrant Tales

How long could the ever-growing list of anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) candidates be on Mamukriit-Looks? Too long for a good country like Finland to be overrun by candidates who spread prejudice and hatred. Below are some new Mamukriit-Looks candidates.

Jan Igor Hirvimäki of Salo suggests that social welfare to blacks (he uses the n-work on his Facebook page) should be slashed in half and that such groups should be forbidden from moving to Finland.

Hannu Tanskanen of Vihti published on Facebook a big picture of Adolf Hitler. He suggests that Hitler could serve as an important source on how to deal with homosexuals and immigrants.

Esko Kontio, a candidate for Savonlinna city council, wrote on Facebook that government leaders should be placed before a firing squad and shot for high treason.

Despite these above-mentioned statements by people who should know better, probably the worst of the bunch is Harri Tauriainen, who got elected to the Kemi city council with 460 votes. He openly publishes racist and white power material on his Facebook site. According to Tauriainen, Finland’s white “race” is under siege.

These are pictures taken from Harri Tauriainen’s Facebook page. Note the “save our race” and white power emblem.

From left to right: Jan Igor Hirvimäki (elected with 105 votes/Salo), Harri Tauriainen (elected with 460 votes/Kemi), Esko Kontio (not elected 12 votes/Savonlinna), and Hannu Tanskanen (not elected 75 votes/Vihti).

The majority of Mamukriit-Looks candidates got elected to office in Finland

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales published earlier this month Mamukriit-Looks: The who’s who of anti-immigration Finland, which was a continuation of Per-Looks, a blog entry than caused outrage among some Perussuomalaiset (PS) candidates running for city council. Even if both blog entries were published with a dose of satire, the election of many PS anti-immigration candidates to city council is no joke.

If the Mamukriit-Looks blog entry is anything to go by, successful anti-immigration candidates running for city council cannot expose their racism too crudely since too much hate turns people off. One of these candidates was Anna-Maija Ahl from Sastamala, who got only 18 votes. The other one is Reija Hirn-Brazhevsky of Savonlinna, who got 14 votes.

Hirn-Brazhevsky’s knee-jerk comments are like an explosion of hate that leaves you stupefied. Her comments give the impression that nobody ever told her – except for now – that white people aren’t the only group living in Finland.

What is shocking is that despite the electoral setback that the PS suffered on Sunday, the majority of Mamukriit-Looks anti-immigration candidates got elected. Of the the 40 PS candidates in the blog entry, 23 got elected while 16 did not.

In the Mamukriit-Looks blog entry you will find Counterjihadists, ultra-nationalists, politicians slapped with fines for inciting ethnic hatred, candidates that admit liking fascism, some even applied for membership in a neo-Nazi association when they were drunk.

Remember Risto Helin of Vaasa, the PS candidate who wore a neo-Nazi shirt to attract votes? Well, he got elected with 234 votes.

Surprised? Check out Amon Rautianen, the PS candidate running for Kotka city council, who wrote on Facebook that it would be “patriotic” to kill government members and that Muslims should be boiled alive. Rautiainen got elected with 152 votes.

This group has some of the top ten anti-immigration candidates of Finland. From top row left to right: Olli Immonen (elected with 1,270 votes/Oulu), James Hirvisaari (elected with 191 votes/Asikkala), Matias Turkkila (not elected 276 votes/Helsinki), Jussi Halla-aho (elected with 6,026 votes/Helsinki), (second row) Juho Eerola (elected with 1,053 votes/Kotka), Freddy Van Wonterghem (elected with 189 votes/Kotka), Simon Elo (elected with 352 votes/Espoo), and Kai Haavisto (not elected 62 votes/Espoo).

Four of the eight candidates got elected to city council in this group. From top row left to right: Teemu Lahtinen (elected with 530 votes/Espoo), Petri Pulkkanen (not elected 189 votes/Espoo), Cristian Tudose (not elected 26 votes/Espoo), Amon Rautiainen (elected with 152 votes/Kotka), (second row) Mika Kujanpää (not elected 20 votes/Hanko), Kimmo Vehviläinen (not elected 96 votes/Helsinki), Reijo Tossavainen (elected with 114 votes/Savitaipale), and Johannes Nieminen (elected with 340 votes/Vantaa).

All of these candidates except for one got elected. From left to right: Mka Nikko (elected with 793 votes/Vantaa), Pasi Salonen (elected with 323 votes/Vihti), name unknown, and Teuvo Hakkarainen (elected with 197 votes/Viitasaari).

In this bunch, five of the eight candidates didn’t get elected. Top row left to right: Anna-Maija Ahl (not elected 18 votes/Sastamala), Reija Hirn-Brazhevsky (not elected 14 votes/Savonlinna), Tuomas Okkonen (elected with 37 votes/Lumijoki), Ulla Pyysalo (elected with 102 votes/Taipalsaari), (second row) Heidi Kuittinen (not elected 76 votes/Kirkonnummi), Jani Salomaa (not elected 85 votes/Salo), Sari Karlström (not elected 104 votes/Pietarsaari), and Jani Viinikainen (elected with 131 votes/Kangasala).

In this group only three candidates got elected. Top row from left to right: Jukka Wallin (not elected 64 votes/Helsinki), Risto Jääskeläinen (not elected 58 votes/Järvenpää), Jouko Vuorinen (not elected 48 votes/Tampere), Heikki Tala (elected with 206 votes/Järvenpää), (second row) Olli Sademies (not elected 334 votes/Helsinki), Petri Luumi (not elected 89 votes/Kouvola), Risto Helin (elected with 234 votes/Vaasa), and Erkki Havansi (elected with 435 votes/Kerava).

From left to right: Heta Lähteenaro (elected with 145 votes/Tuusula), Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo (elected with 647 votes/Lohja), Veli-Matti Saarakkala (elected with 633 votes/Kurikka), and Heikki Luoto (elected with 922 votes/Tampere).

PS anti-immigration candidates did well in the Finnish municipal elections

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Migrant Tales

What do Sunday’s municipal elections tell us about where Finland is heading politically? Even if the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party won 12.3% of the votes, which was a disappointment for Timo Soini, it reinforces Finland’s anti-EU and anti-immigration stance.

The biggest winner of the election was the Center Party (18.7%), which had lost a lot of votes to the PS in the April 2011 election, and the PS. The biggest losers were the Greens (8.5%) .

If Sunday’s results are anything to go by, the secret of being rich in votes and (in)famous is to be a PS member and be a Counterjihadist or strongly against immigration and cultural diversity.

Finland’s most notorious Counterjihadists did well in the election. Some of these include Jussi Halla-aho of Helsinki who won 6,026 votes, while Olli Immonen (1,270)of Oulu and Juho Erola (1,053) of Kotka secured a lot of votes as well. James Hirvisaari of Asikkala got in with 191 votes.

Anti-immigration candidates did well in the municipal elections. From top row (left to right) Olli Immonen (elected with 1,270 votes/Oulu), James Hirvisaari (elected 191 votes/Asikkala), Matias Turkkila (not elected/Helsinki), Jussi Halla-aho (elected 6,026 votes/Helsinki), Juho Eerola (elected 1,053 votes/Kotka), Freddy Van Wonterghem (elected 189 votes/Kotka), Simon Elo (elected 352 votes/Espoo), and Kai Haavisto (not elected/Espoo).

Other PS anti-immigration hardliners that were elected include Amon Rautianen of Kotka, who suggested on Facebook that Muslims should be boiled alive, got elected with 152 votes. Freddy van Wonterghem, who got fined for hate speech, went to city council with 189 votes.

Other PS candidates notorious for their anti-immigration stances include Teemu Laitinen (530 votes/Espoo), Sppo Huhta (509 votes/Espoo), Simon Elo (352 votes/Espoo) and Ulla Pyysalo (102 votes/Taipalsaari), MP Eerola’s aide who applied for membership in the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta association.

All in all, the elections were a blow to the PS but it shows that Finland is still flirting with intolerance and far-right nationalism.

As one voter put it, the PS’ 12.3% result was a blow to Soini. “Things could be worse if they would had won about 16% of the votes as some polls predicted,” he said.

Immigrants that look down on other immigrants

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Migrant Tales

The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

William Blake

Some immigrants who have lived in Finland for many decades have adapted so well to this country that even their prejudices and stereotypes are just like those of the locals. Some, like Alain Chiaroni or Freddy Van Wonterghem, however, go beyond the call of duty to give Africans and visible minorities lessons on how they should integrate into Finnish society.

What unites Chiaroni and Van Wanterghem other than they are both Perussuomalaiset (PS) party members? Answer: Their reactive views on cultural diversity and visible immigrants like Muslims and Africans.

At least Van Wonterghem, a native of Belgium, has failed miserably on the integration front. He got slapped in March with a 420-euro fine for inciting ethnic hatred against a group.

Despite having lived for 38 years in a foreign country, Chiaroni sounds like a nineteenth-century colonial master from France when he speaks of Somalis and Africans living in Finland.

“You could only get citizenship [in the late-1970s] if you had a sound background, a good education, a job in Finland, had Finnish- language skills, ties to Finland, were well-integrated into Finnish society, had two influential persons recommended you [for citizenship], etc…”, he writes in an Uusi Suomi blog entry.

He continues by stating that certain “political circles” in Finland are of the opinion that our country must adapt completely to those immigrants who move here.

“Has Finland lost its common sense?” he asks.

What Chiaroni forgets to ask is a more important question: Why Finland had so few foreigners in the 1970s and why there was so little foreign investment in the country?

By around 1980, the biggest “foreign” group living in Finland were Swedes, who were mostly Finns that were naturalized Swedish citizens. In the 1970s, Finland’s foreign population totaled a mere 7,000 souls.

Moreover, Finland did everything possible to restrict foreign investment with the help of the Restricting Act of 1939.

Would I want to live in a country where foreigners, black people and visible immigrants were a rarity and where outside investment was the exception as opposed to the rule?

No thanks.

I like how Finland looks today with all its defects. It’s a million times better than in the Cold War years, when your otherness followed you around like a shadow that marked you for the rest of your days.