Two hard-hitting editorials by Helsingin Sanomat on the mistreatment of labor migrants could indicate how the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset* will do in the parliamentary election. I makesuch a claim because I am an optimist.
We saw something similar in the US Midterm elections, which showed how voters rebuked Donald Trump and his election deniers.
Apart from two important editorials, good reporting on the case of a Mongolian nurse showed the good side of the media exposing and defending people’s rights.
The first Helsingin Sanomat editorial, published on Saturday, highlights what Migrant Tales mentioned weeks ago: Youth gang violence is a campaign topic for the opposition. The last one strongly criticizes the Finnish Immigration Service for arbitrarily mishandling Mongolian nurse Anudari Boldbaatar.
Struggling with the slow pace of due process in Finland to challenge Migri’s deportation order, a district court eventually overturned it, Boldbaatar had had enough and moved to another country.
I agree with both editorials and commend Finland’s biggest daily for speaking out against the hostile environment against migrants and minorities. The editorial on Boldbaatar asks how it is possible that Migri can ruin a person’s live and get away with an apology.
“The Agency [Migri] has traditionally played an important role in Finland’s immigration policy, mainly aimed at preventing foreigners from entering Finland.”
There are many good tips migrants can get in Finland on how to land a job, write a convincing CV, and give near-perfect answers to a prospective employer at a job interview. Despite the latter, one crucial matter needs to be included: Learning and protecting your rights after you are hired.
Because it is difficult to find online cases of abuse and unfair practices by employers, the victim may face several obstacles. The post below by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) highlights the problem of employer abuse, but there is no advice on what you should do and whom you should turn to for help.
Khalid, who prefers to remain anonymous because he fears problems with his past employer, said that the system whereby asylum seekers must get work to get a residence permit opens them up to abuse.
“I know of many cases where a foreigner is abused and taken advantage of by the employer,” he said. “It is easy for the employer to force the employee to accept abuse and work in black, and even threaten him or her with deportation.”
Khalid is, however, adamant: “When you feel something is wrong, go to the authorities and ask for legal advice. This is your right, and I don’t wish anyone to suffer my terrifying experiences in the Finnish labor market.”
He said the information you can get from unions like SAK is very helpful when approaching the police about your case. Even so, there is so much that such organizations can do to fix your problem at work.
The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) below tells you how to identify exploitation by the employer but not what to do if you are a victim of such abuse.
Khalid has not yet made a police report about the abuse he suffered at a Helsinki company that subcontracts work from the state-owned Posti Corporation.
First employers
Like many others, the young Iraqi came to Finland in 2015 when he was 18. His work history defies all the hostie urban tales by far-right anti-immigration groups like the Perussuomalaiset*, claiming such people came here only to live off social welfare. For several years, Khalid was an undocumented migrant since he had a deportation order in 2017 but preferred to stay.
“I came in 2015 but started to work in 2018 for a company that fixed old windows and did cleaning work,” he said. “I was fortunate because the company that hired me did not exploit me. They paid me fairly, got paid for overtime and even holiday pay.”
Khalid’s first job in Finland was fixing old windows. Source: Google
The young man admits being surprised that his first employer treated him fairly. He had heard of many cases where their employers abused and short-changed foreigners.
“I was forced to quit my first job because I did not have a work permit,” he said. “I could not apply for a work permit because I did not have a passport. I was unemployed, but only for a short time.”
His second employer was Posti Corporation. He was paid 850 euros a month for distributing newspapers during the wee hours. From Posti Corporation, he started to do construction cleaning work but had to quit that job because Migri would not grant him a work permit.
Migrant Tales insight:Dana is a talented poet from Iran and a victim of the Finnish Immigration Service. I met her through this blog in 2012.
I wrote back in 2015: “After a year and six months, I got an email from Dana, who has written many beautiful and powerful poems for us. I was delighted to hear from her after such a long time. Those who remember, the passing away of her parents in such a short time was a terrible blow for her. She had tried to bring them to Finland, but this wasn’t possible due to our tight family reunification laws.
I’d like to personally welcome Dana back to our community. We look forward to reading many of her poems in the future.“
You can read Dana’s poetry and opinion pieces here.
When you read her poetry and essays, remember that she is only a person who has, apart from God, only words to defend herself.
Her situation begs a question: Why has Finland brought so much hardship on her? You would have to read her poems and blog entries to get the full answer to that question.
Welcome back again, Dana. We missed you.
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Finland is a deadly country, a country that creates death. The country that produces death
Finland is a deadly country. It means that Finland creates and creates death. Yes, you heard right, Finland is a country that produces death and misery. Finland is a country that earns a lot of money by selling weapons and being rich and wealthy. And the world is proud of being first. But is the country that kills innocent children and oppressed helpless women the country of the first world? What does the first world really mean? The bullying countries of the world always insult the poor countries and classify everyone according to class. Let’s go back to Finland, which kills and makes money by producing weapons in third-world countries. The Finnish government and newspapers, television, news, etc., information and hide the people’s truth. There are no real journalism and journalists in all of Finland. They are all, without exception, terrified and terrified of dictatorial laws. Today, I will talk a little about the hidden truth so that the dear universe can see the real face of Finland.
After a setback on Sunday, Iraqi demonstrators in front of the Finnish Immigration Service building have vowed to continue their protest, according to Walid Sahib, one of the organizers of the demonstration.
A total of four demonstrators were detained by the police on Sunday and released from custody three hours later.
“We will continue [with our protest],” said Sahib. “We are seeking permission from the city [of Helsinki]. We will go somewhere else if they say we cannot demonstrate in front of Migri.”
Iraqi demonstrators protesting in front of the Finnish Immigration Service building on Thursday. Photo: By demonstrators.
After Migrant Tales broke the story of Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) asked a divorced Moroccan to leave Finland with a heart condition. Youssef Hemdani’s case has received a lot of support from Morocco and Finland.
“Thank you for your support,” said his brother, Laghdof Hemdari.
Apart from getting a lot of attention on social media, Hemdani has received visits and concern from the Moroccan ambassador to Finland, Mohamed Achgalou, and from Social Democrat MP Hussein al-Taee as well as from Left Alliance Helsinki city councilor, Suldaan Said Ahmed.
There are plans as well to appeal to the district cout Migri’s decision.
Youssef Hamdani has been hospitalized for three months.
Hemdani’s heart condition is serious. The 32-year-old suffers from an enlarged heart and cardiac insufficiency, according to a medical report.
Youssef Hemdani is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and cardiac insufficiency.
Laghdof Hemdari said that so far, there is no pledge from the hospital that his brother will be operated as promised before Migri decided to revoke his residence permit.
“There is no treatment for my brother’s condition in Morocco,” he said. “He isn’t well. Some days he’s better and other days are worse. Sometimes he cannot eat because he feels the food chokes him.”
Youssef Hemdani, a 32-year-old Moroccan national, received a visit on Friday from the police at the hospital where he’s been interned for about three months due to a heart condition. The police told him that he has 30 days to leave the country.
According to a hospital diagnosis, Hemdani suffers from an enlarged heart (dilatoiva kardiomyopetia) and cardiac insufficiency.
Hemdani’s diagnosis and condition, according to his medical report.He suffers from an enlarged heart and cardiac insufficiency.
The decision to not renew Hemdani’s residence permit, after living four years in Finland, was apparently made after he divorced his wife a year go.
They have no children.
The police gave him the following reason why he had to leave Finland: “The Finnish Immigration Service cancels the residence permit, because the grounds on which your residence permit was granted no longer exist
In protest, Hemdani decided to go on a hunger strike from Wednesday evening but his brother Laghdof Hemdari talked him out it on Thursday.
“Before the cancellation of the residence permit, the hospital said that they would operate,” said his brother, who lives in Spain. “This is what we want to find out [why they now changed their minds about the operation]. This is not humanity. This is not Finland.”
Hamdani has been interned in the hospital for about three months due to a heart condition.The official document from the police states: “The Finnish Immigration Service cancels the residence permit, because the grounds on which your residence permit was granted no longer exist.
Migrant Tales will follow Hemdani’s case and write updates.
A couple of months ago, as part of the Writers for Peace Committee, the Finnish PEN was commissioned to write a resolution regarding migration on behalf of The Assembly of Delegates of PEN International. That resolution – written in a collaboration between Veera Tyhtilä, Shashank Mane and I – was focused on the problematic suffered by migrants and asylum seekers worldwide in relation to their condition as outsiders in foreign lands. The document made a diagnosis on the neediness for legal aid and locally contextualized the current situation in Finland.
I remembered this document while trying to articulate my nightmare with the Finnish Immigration Office for this article. Something important about the resolution was focused on conceiving the problem as an ethical priority that should be highlighted and tackled for the sake of human dignity and structural change. The final version of the resolution will be presented at the 85th PEN International Congress in Manila, being a document with strong personal significance due to the fact that it resonates with values that symbolically represents me as a Mexican-born professional making a living in Finland.
To give a little of context about me, I might say that I am an author and graphic designer residing in Helsinki since late 2013, and also a board member of the Finnish PEN. My work and experience as a writer, multimedia artist and activist on cultural advocacy is relatively known by the community on the field in Finland and Mexico. My literary and artistic practice has been supported by local institutions like the Arts Promotion Center Finland and Kone Foundation, opening spaces for Finnish-born and non Finnish-born professionals in Finland and abroad. I am also an entrepreneur running my own firm (toiminimi) with clients from the cultural, academic and hospitality industries; I have been translator, publisher, producer, curator; and so on and so forth.
On August 2018 I received a negative decision from the Finnish Immigration Office (Migri). The story involved an appointment letter to visit them at the terminal 2 of the Airport, a phone call with an interpreter in Spanish and a negative decision with the request to leave the country back to Mexico. I originally applied with my own firm for an entrepreneurs residence permit and during that time I received a full time working grant by Kone Foundation. I informed Migri about the grant – and its demand for a full commitment – and, instead of suggesting that perhaps it was not the suitable application for my current status, it was easier for them to deny me the residence.
So I got an attorney, we appealed, I applied for a new residence permit under the base of professional artist; before summer this year they asked for my sources of income (which were the grant and my company). Summer passed by, Kone Foundation’s grant came to an end last July, then they asked yet again for my sources of income but this time – ironically – with a suggestion to apply for the entrepreneurs residence permit if my income were mainly generated from my company. So they basically suggested me to go for the same residence permit that was rejected already a year before, including the extra expenses that applying again might bring.
I asked for two more weeks to do the suggested application but then the appealing decision came from the higher judge saying that I never informed about the grant, that I do not have ties with Finland, that I have another residence permit application on process and therefore they do not see a reason why I should not be deported.
According to a Migration Review made by the ministry, several legislative amendments were introduced in the previous government term to make it easier for entrepreneurs and experts to move to Finland in order to promote economic growth and employment, but It does not seem to be the case for professional artistic or cultural based workers financed by an institution in the form of a grant. Yet again, in parallel, it still remains unclear why the work made within a firm is not consider professional artistic work under the eyes of the Migration Office, in direct contradiction with the criterias given by the Ministry of Education and Culture where a grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland can be awarded throughout a company. So independently if the grant passes through my firm (Manuke. Lit, Media Art & Design), or not, the point is that the work within it should be considered professional artistic practice according to their criterias in other branches of the government.
One way or the other, the inconsistencies and opacity that Migri has regarding the evaluation processes, with no clear contact person to whom consult with about your own case, ends up making the process very unfortunate and giving a general feeling of estructural harassment, considering also that there are no clear mechanisms that explain what they really look for when they process a residence permit application. This is a delicate issue due to the fact that many people suffer this kind of situation in similar or worse proportion to my case. Spending money in applications, judges and attorneys; and sometimes even with no voices of their own representation to speak their stories, like in the case of asylum seekers for instance. All these elements together seem to depict a clear structural resistance, even when the Government Integration Programme for 2016–2019 and Government Resolution on a Government Integration Programme published by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in 2016 already acknowledged the relevance and urgency of a humane integration policy.
Last May, Support Structures Collective organized a peer group for art and cultural workers dealing with Migri. The peer group, coordinated by artist Martina Miño, took place at the facilities of Globe Art Point (Gap) in Helsinki and it was intended to compile the stories suffered by the field, identify common grounds of needs, and deal with possible solutions collectively. I attended the group both as Gap’s representative and as a professional struggling with the Migration Office myself. Martina told me that there were some attempts to contact Migri asking for them to provide one of their specialists or evaluators who could join the group, it seems to be that after some e-mail exchanges they just stop answering.
A statistical review made by The Finnish National Contact Point of the European Migration Network (EMN) in 2018, which compiles statistics from the Finnish Immigration Service, Police and Finnish Border Guard as well as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), shows that around 60% of the decisions on first residence permits for the category of ‘self-employment’ between 2017-2018 were negative from a total of 293 applications. Furthermore, the review mentions that before applying for the residence permit under the grounds of self-employment / entrepreneur, the applicant needs to get an assessment of the business model from Business Finland, but none of that information is specified in Migri’s official website. Yritys Espoo offers free of charge business advice for everyone, by the way.
For the Residence Permit Application for Work in the field of Culture or Arts, the information is not included into the statistical review, leaving a big question mark on the transparency of a process where I clearly covered all their criteria, despite its discriminatory statement on what is not a professional artist (“You may for example be a circus performer or a performing artist, but not a restaurant musician”).
While writing this article, I am facing a deportation process. But this time I have to request an appeal to the Supreme Court. A request.
True poets happen suddenly: they are born and unborn in four lines – Gonzalo Rojas
*Daniel Malpica is a Mexican-born author, graphic designer and board member of Finnish PEN.
The picture of the girl in Joutseno’s immigration removal center was taken by a detained Iraqi family in 2017. If there is a picture that represents the injustice of Finland’s heartless immigration “service” authorities, it is this picture of the girl gazing at her future from a barred window with barb wire.
You can check the video of the detained family here.
After this ordeal, and after a lot of pressure placed on the Finnish Immigration Service, the family of nine was not deported but given a residence permit to stay in Finland.
The video above can be watched through the link. The girl in the picture said: “Me olemme Joutsen(ossa). Ovet kiinni…ja ikkunat kiinni. Jos tarvitsemme asia paina ovikelloa…sitten poliisi tule. Ja siellä on kamera. Ja emme osamme ulos.” (We are in Joutseno. Door closes..and windows are closed. If we need something we press the doorbell…then the police comes. And there’s a camera. And we don’t know how to go outside). Source: Iltalehti.
The desperation and anguish in a woman’s voice are present as she pleads for help for her Mauritanian husband, 45, who was deported on March 27. It was the second time that the police had tried to deport her husband after the first attempt, on March 19, on Turkish Airlines failed.
“You must help me,” she said. “I’m suffering from depression and feel very bad about what happened. He is a good man and has a job. Why did Migri [Finnish Immigration Service] deport him?”
Her story and that of her husband’s is another sad chapter in the inhumane manner that the Finnish Immigration Service and the police treat some migrants, especially those from Muslim-majority countries.
His wife sends us the following email from his husband:
“At 5 am on Wednesday 27.3, the staff of the Metsälä detention unit [immigration removal center] woke me up and said that the police were waiting for me downstairs in the cellar. I went out of my room to meet them wearing a pajama. They were six police offices who Immediately escorted me to their police car. They frisked me and then placed a thick belt around my waist that they tightened from my back.
Next, they cuffed my legs as well and proceeded to drive me to the airport…At the airport, they parked the [police] car next to the back entrance of the plane. One of them [the police] wrapped his right arm around my neck almost chocking me while his left hand covered my nose and mouth and [then] laid me [by force] across three seats; the other police officers sat on top of me focing my arms behind my back. They kept me in that positiion until I passed out. I felt the armrests [of the seat] stab my body. I woke up after some time and found myself in the middle seat with two police officers at my sides and a third one holding my head [down]. There were few passengers on the flight. In Paris, I was locked up in an isolated room for three hours until the next flight [to Noukchott, Mauritania]. They were worried that somebody would notice me.”
