Tag: Finland

The government’s plan to help tackle racism will disappoint and most likely be a dud

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Monday’s A-studio talk about racism confirmed that Prime Minister Petteri Ospo’s plan to tackle racism and discrimination will most likely end up dead on arrival. One of the guests on the talk show, National Coalition Party (NCP) third vice president, Mari-Leena Talvitie, could not name one concrete action that the government would take to address the social ill.

Taking into account that Prime Minister Opro was willing to go to bed with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, a party with a solid track record on racism, raises some questions about the government’s anti-racism plan, which it plans to give to parliament in September.

Can we trust it? Or is it a ploy to save the government from a no-confidence vote?

Talvitie could not list any concrete measures about such a plan.

“The concrete measure and goal is that everyone has the right to live in a safe society in Finland,” she said, but the host asked the MP to be more concrete.

“The [concrete] measure I see is that [racism] must be tackled, whether it happens at schools or hobbies or elsewhere,” she said. “You get that through discussion, through education, through the involvement of organizations, and through the clear involvement of our society.”

So, according to Talvitie, the government washes its hands and tells the public to speak out against racism if it occurs in places like bus stops and schools.

PS MP Joakim Vigelius had another take on Finland’s racism problem.

Source: Twitter

@Muksunen tweets above: “[Joakim] Vigelius used classic whataboutism and started talking about the disabled when the topic was RACISM.
Vigelius made a reference to the “old 15-year-old [racist] posts [by Riikka Purra]” but forgot to mention a video by the Perussuomalaiset Youth yesterday depicting and ridiculing Muslim women [wearing black plastic sacks]. It [the video] supposedly “defends women.”

Vigelius added that PS followers have a different view of what is racism. He said that the word has suffered inflation.

I wonder if victims of racism consider the social ill to have suffered “inflation.”

Continue reading “The government’s plan to help tackle racism will disappoint and most likely be a dud”

The response to Suddeutsche Zeitung’s Alex Rühle by Minister Wille Rydman’s office reveals contempt for the free media

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The reply by Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Minister Wille Rydman aide to Suddeutsche Zeitung’s Alex Rühle is a clear example of how the minister and his party hold the free media in contempt.

About thirty years ago as the Financial Times correspondent in Finland, a foreign ministry official suggested that I get in touch with him before publishing anything on Helsinki-Moscow relations. I considered it an infringement on my rights as a journalist. A scandal ensued.

It appears that Minister Rydman and his aide, Tuulia Alanko, have crossed a line by telling Rühle which sources he should not use in order to “report correctly” about the government.

I was not able to confirm through Rühle if the two messages published in Suomen Uutiset are authentic. However, Suomen Uutiset is the PS’ official newspaper.

A question emerges: Did Rühle give permission to Rydman’s office to make public these two messages?

In my opinion, the actions and responses to Rühle by Minister Wille Rydman and his office show clear contempt for the free media and frustration that the minister and the PS cannot control what the media writes and reports on.

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Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Alex Rühle: “I was irritated by Wille Rydman’s repeated accusation of frivolous and false reporting”

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An email published on Twitter has caused a stir since it implied that Minister Wille Rydman. I got in touch with Alex Rühle to confirm if what he wrote is true.

Alex Rühe is the Nordic correspondent of Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Below is the original email published Wednesday:

“Dear all,

The sentences quoted on Twitter come from a private, confidential email which I wrote to a source in Finnland. This email was not intended for publication. However, the source forwarded this email without my knowledge to the person, who calls herself on Twitter @PistolSolja and whom I don’t know.

She in turn published the sentences – again without my knowledge or consent.

I chose my words in this private mail because I was irritated by Wille Rydman’s repeated accusation of frivolous and false reporting.

In my mail I incorrectly gave the impression that Mr. Rydman had written me an email personally. In fact it had been written by his assistant in response to questions I had sent Rydman in preparation of my last text about the political situation in Finnland for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. I have never claimed that Rydman threatened me nor do I feel threatened or scared by Wille Rydman or his assistant.

Sincerely, 

Alex Rühle

For further reading: The daily has covered (in German) numerous scandals of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government:

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Media Monitoring Group of Finland [1]: A Perussuomalaiset minister threatens the foreign media

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The Media Monitoring Group of Finland has received some disturbing news about how Perussuomalaiset (PS) Minister for Foreign Trade Wille Rydman allegedly sent hostile messages to Alex Rühle, the Nordic correspondent of the Munich-based daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

We offer our 100% support to Rühle and condemn forcibly Rydman, the PS, and the government for intimidating the media.

In a message below retrieved from Twitter, Rühle states that he’s received another “disgusting, poisoned letter from Rydman.”

Source: Twitter

The embattled minister, whose racist emails were made public in July by Helsingin Sanomat, Rydman has accused certain Finnish activists and academics of conspiring with the foreign media to discredit the government.

Rydman’s action against the daily is an affront to press freedom. We shouldn’t be surprised by Rydman’s behavior since it is the way radical right parties operate. If they don’t get their way, they attack democratic institutions like the media.

For further reading: The daily has covered (in German) numerous scandals of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government:

[1] Media Monitoring Group of Finland aims to promote fair and accurate reporting by the Finnish media of underrepresented cultural, racial, ethnic, and religious groups. As Finland’s cultural diversity continues to grow, the role of the media in forming public opinion and attitudes about minorities becomes even more relevant.

A “special kind of evil” to place pregnant women and children in harm’s way in Finland

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The government of Prime Minister Orop plans to tighten the already vulnerable situation of undocumented migrants in Finland, according to a statement by the ministry of social affairs and health. “Removing the right of illegal residents [undocumented migrants] to non-urgent health and social services and social security…”

In plain English, non-urgent health services include:

  • children’s health services,
  • pregnancy and childbirth services
  • health checks and vaccinations

There are an estimated 3,000 undocumented migrants in Finland, of which 300 are children.

Abdirisak Ahmed is a medic, and he is shocked by government plans.

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Finland’s refugee policy returns to the Cold War

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I was surprised again to read a story in Yle about Russian army deserters crossing the Finnish border “without permission.” Without permission?! Understanding that the Russian deserters had crossed the border to ask for asylum in Finland, can we state that there is something “illegal” about this?

A ridiculous claim by a Finnish tabloid. How can a refugee be “illegal?” Source: Ilta-Sanomat

Moreover, another Cold War term used by Yle in the story is loikkari, or defector.

In the 1930s, Finns who moved to the Soviet Union were also called loikkari.

In the face of sensitive relations between Finland and the former Soviet Union, the Finnish authorities avoided back then calling during the Cold War a Soviet citizen an “asylum seeker.”

During the Cold War years, one or two Soviet citizens were granted asylum status in Finland. One of these, apparently, was asked to leave the country after getting asylum.

Migrant Tales had the opportunity to interview in 2012 one of these former Soviet citizens who was caught crossing the border and returned to the USSR despite having sought asylum.

Article 14 of the UN Human Rights Declaration, reads: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

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Petteri Orpo’s government of Finland loathes migrants: Is it an overestimation or underestimation?

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By now, after numerous scandals, Prime Minister Petteri Opro may be thinking that getting into bed with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* was a huge mistake that will have far-reaching consequences for the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and even end up costing him his job.

If Orpo and PS Finance Minister Riikka Purra had a crystal ball to look into the future, what would they have done differently? Quite a lot, I think.

Prime Minister Orpo got the first sour taste of scandals to hit his government with Vilhelm Junnila, who resigned almost s soon he was appointed as minister of foreign trade.

It could be summed up in two words: overestimate and underestimate.

It’s pretty clear that Orpo and Purra underestimated the Wilhelm Junnila debacle. Or maybe the correct term should be wishful thinking, believing that Junnila’s racist, far-right, and anti-Semitic writings would not raise any questions.

One matter that Purra and her party overestimated was the lure of racism and xenophobia. Like a magic button, the PS can turn to its magic racism button to get votes, and lots of them, and media complacency.

But has this now changed? Are we now seeing, as what PS Interior Minister Mari Rantanen called a paradigm shift migration policy, a change in our perception and acceptance of racism?

Time will tell if my comment was an overestimation or an underestimation of the situation.

Spain’s snap election result is bad news for Finland’s conservative-radical right government

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Instead of only congratulating the National Coalition Party’s (NCP) sister party, Partido Popular, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo should pay close attention to the election result in Spain. True, the conservative Partido Popular, won the election, but the result was disappointing and insufficient to give it a majority.

Social Democratic (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ snap election gamble paid off handsomely. The PSOE defied all expectations and gave it 31.7% of the vote, the best result in percentage terms since 2008. More importantly, the result broke with Europe’s shift to the radical right.

Source: The Guardian.

The biggest loser of Spain’s election was the far-right Vox, a sister party of the Finnish Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. Support for Vox plummeted to 12% from 15% in 2019, causing it to lose 19 seats to end up with 33 seats in parliament.

Source: Helsingin Sanomat

If Spain can beat conservative and radical right parties in an election, countries like Finland should be encouraged by the result in Spain.

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Finland’s government gets ready for another scandal. This time it’s Minister for Foreign Trade Wille Rydman. The party? You guessed it.

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is ironic that when Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra published Wednesday a blog playing down her racist and violent postings of 2008, another scandal erupted when Helsingin Sanomat revealed a number of racist messages of PS Minister for Foreign Trade Wille Rydman. The messages were written in 2016 between him and his former girlfriend.

Rydman’s anti-immigration views were so well known in his former party, the National Coalition Party (NCP), that he was known as “NCP’s Halla-aho.”

Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of parliament, is known as the “father of Finnish racism” due to his blog writings on Scripta.

Source: Helsingin Sanomat

In those messages, Rydman called asylum seekers who came in 2015 “desert monkeys” and used other racist words for blacks, Muslims, and Jews. He wrote that a certain flower, the lilly of the valley, spreads and multiplies like Somalis. Rydman said he’d be ready to forbid the person wearing the hijab instead of the veil.

The incident is the sixth scandal involving five PS ministers and the speaker of the parliament.

Rydman ran into problems last year when Helsingin Sanomat published an investigative story where a number of young women, some of whom were minors, claimed they were harassed by him.

The scandal caused Rydman to be suspended from the party. He joined the PS in January.

Riikka Purra plays the victim and plays down her racist blog writings of 2008

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Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s defense rests on playing the victim and underplaying her racist and hostile blog postings she wrote on Scripta in 2008, where she used the n-word, Turkish monkey, threatened to kill youths of migrant origin on a commuter train, among other anti-social postings.

On the right, a self-confident Riikka Purra. After the scandal broke, her image changed (left).

Scripta is a blog written by Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion. Halla-aho was appointed in June speaker of parliament.

You can access some quotes from Halla-aho’s blog here.

A warning: Scripta is littered with Islamophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and misogynist writings.

A good example of how an Islamophobic party like the PS covers its hatred for Muslims. In the top picture, the PS claims that Muslim women are oppressed because they wear certain Muslim attire. In the second cartoon below, the PS gives its real opinion: “Why don’t you go back to where you came from? That dress has no place in Finland.” Purra made a comment in 2019 of a woman with a “black sack” which she hasn’t apologized.

One of Purra’s main defenses of her racist, homophobic, and hostile writings is that they were written 15 years ago and eight years before she entered politics. She wrote that the writings were “15-year-old comments made on the Internet 15 years ago.”

If I had to break down her defense:
One third playing the victim
One third blaming others like the media
One third defiance

Even if Purra doesn’t mention it in her blog, she was 31 years old in 2008 and a university researcher.

Her second defense argument is that her racist postings were done as “insider humor and sarcasm.”

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