Tag: hate speech

Does the Finnish police really care about online hate speech?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A total of 31 ethnic agitation cases were placed on the desk of the public prosecutor in 2019, which is a 59.2% drop from 76 cases in the previous year, according to Yle.

The number of ethnic agitation cases looks even more somber if we compare them with the cases that ended up in court. In 2016, only 11.9% ended up in court; the corresponding figure for 2017 and 2018 was 16.7% and 58.1%, respectively.


Ethnic agitation cases that ended up in district court in 2018. Even if such cases rose by 138.5% last year to 31, it is still only the microscopic tip of the iceberg. Source: Justice Ministry.
The number of ethnic agitation cases brought to the public prosecutor during 2016-2018.

Like hate crime and ethnic agitation cases, reporting sexual assault cases face the same challenges.

If Green League MP Iris Suomela is to be believed, she said in parliament in September that there are “hundreds of thousands” rape cases in Finland, of which 50,000 are reported annually to Victim Support Finland (RIKU). Of these, the police record about 1,200 cases of which around 200 get sentences.

Yle blames the lack of funding for the sharp drop in ethnic agitation cases investigated by the police.

“One reason is that the police don’t investigate online hate speech as actively as before,” Yle reports. In 2017, funds were earmarked to the police to recruit more police to investigate, among other matters, online hate speech.”

The number of online police officers has been scaled back. Police inspector Måns Enqvist of the National Board of Police of Finland said that there at the most 10 online police officers monitoring hate speech.

In the face of rising hate speech and ethnic friction, it is bad news for migrants and minorities in Finland.

Apart from funding, an important question we could ask is if the police prioritize hate crime cases and if they care. Sure, we can hear all the lip service about how the police have zero tolerance for racism, but in many cases, some of their actions speak louder than words.

Below are some incidents that eat away at police credibility and their standing in our culturally diverse community:

In the light of a drop in funds to investigate online hate crime and the questionable record of the police concerning racism among its ranks, there is only one conclusion: Online hate crime isn’t a high-priority issue for the police that exposes society’s exceptionalism.

Exposing Finnish white privilege #66: Abdirahim Husu Hussein and dealing with racist passengers in a racist environment

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Helsinki City Councilperson Abdirahim Husu Hussein has been in the eye of a storm over a passenger who harassed him in a racist manner and who he was planning to leave the car at a bus stop but took the person to his final destination.

Hussein posted on Facebook on Sunday that he left the passenger by a bus stop in the freeway but all of this didn’t happen on the day he claimed.

“Only last week,” he said, “a passenger insulted me in a racist manner. I should have asked him to get out of the car, but I didn’t.”

Hussein has filed charges against the passenger who insulted him in a racist manner a week ago.

Even so, and for this mistake, the Helsinki city councilperson has been lynched by social media and print media, which has branded him “a liar.”

That’s not all. The media has put Hussein under scrutiny. One article questioned the veracity of a story that happened a long time ago to him when he woke up in a hospital after being hit with a baseball bat.

The media is not only attempting to take away his credibility but to break and destroy him as a person. The Finnish media uses a bazooka to kill an ant.

Finnish white privilege #66

Racist attacks and near-constant microaggressions and racist remarks against migrant and especially black taxi drivers are a sad fact. Hussein knows this too well.

A Helsingin Sanomat article wrote about the near-constant racist abuse suffered by a Ghanian taxi driver, and most recently, about a Somali taxi driver. There is also the case of a Somali driver who was assaulted. Etonians, who are white, suffer racist abuse from some passengers, too.

But what does Taksi Helsinki say about these cases and the fact that their visible migrant drivers get harassed in a racist manner by passengers?

No media has yet asked the company’s CEO, Jari Kantonen, if it has guidelines for those that drive for them in case a passenger starts to insult them in a racist manner.

Since Friday, I have without luck attempted to get in touch with the Taksi Helsinki CEO. He has not returned my calls.

“There are no such guidelines or training [how to deal with a racist passenger] offered by the [Taksi Helsinki] company,” said Hussein.

Gathering by the reaction of the media, members of his Social Democratic Party (SDP), and public opinion, there is one matter that stands out: The hatred of some white Finns of black people, especially outspoken ones like Hussein.

While I am certain that foreign taxi drivers, especially black drivers, are targets of racist abuse, there is no discussion going on in the media now about such a problem and how taxi companies guarantee their employees safe working spaces.

Even parties like the Social Democrats, of which Hussein is a member, appear to worry more about their poll standings than the rise of racism in Finland and of a racist party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS).* The party’s image is paramount now for the SDP.

The latest opinion poll published by Yle last week showed that support for the SDP had sunk by 1.7 percentage points to 13.9%, with the PS gaining 2.1 percentage points to lead the polls with 23%.

I wrote in May about the hypocrisy and double standards of the Finnish media when it came to another SDP politician, MP Hussein al-Taee. The SDP MP’s and Hussein’s cases expose the dark side, a blind spot of our collective denial of racism in our society and how we treat people of color.

While Hussein has apologized for what happened, it seems that many want blood since he has been outspoken against racism in Finnish society and in parties like the PS.

Many may see this as an opportunity to climb back into their shells and reassure themselves that racism is not a problem in Finland.

Believe me, it is. And Hussein’s case proves it beyond any doubt.

Ali Jahangiri, Hussein’s radio host partner, puts what happened into perspective by tweeting: “#husugate is a good example of the power structures [in our society]. When a member of the minority makes a mistake, he ends up losing all his credibility. Then again, a person [Jussi Halla-aho] in power who dreams of killing homosexuals ends up becoming the head of his party.”

Despite what happened, anti-racism activism will not disappear in Finland but get stronger.

See also:

*A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Hate speech study and story by Yle: Interviewing the wolf guarding the sheep

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Ovem lupo commitere.

The saying in Latin, To set a wolf to guard sheep, raises the right question about a YLE news story on a hate speech study and how it intimidates politicians from expressing their opinions.

The study reveals that 75% of the messages come from anti-immigration groups, with the rest coming from left-liberal circles, according to Helsingin Sanomat, which quotes the study’s findings.

Forty percent of all politicians in the study admitted that they were intimidated by the hate speech. The party least affected by hate speech was the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, according to Iltalehti.

Watch the news broadcast (in Finnish) here.

The study looked at 375,000 messages between March and August. Of these, 5,500 were hate messages from 2,200 accounts, of which 200 were the most active. Fifteen politicians received over 100 hate messages. These were PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho, Green Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo, Prime Minister Antti Rinne, National Coalition Party head Petteri Orpo and Education Minister Li Andersson.

The study blames social media platforms like Twitter for allowing these types of hate messages to be sent to politicians even if they are against their community standards.

We could take the question a bit further: Why don’t the Finnish authorities, namely the police, openly demand social media platforms to follow their community standards?

Moreover, there are too few police, at the most 10, monitoring hate speech, according toan earlier Yle story. Last year, a mere 31 ethnic agitation cases ended up in, according to Migrant Tales, citing the justice ministry.

Going back to the wolf guarding the sheep, Yle interviews two MPs for the story that was aired Friday. They are PS MP Riikka Purra, who built her political career on Islamophobic soundbites, and Anna Kontula of the Left Alliance.

One does not need rocket science to discern that Finland’s hostile environment against migrants and minorities and growing hate speech derives from mainly one party: the PS.

Reija Härkonen asks the right question about the Yle story: “The Perussuomalaiset don’t consider hate speech a problem. Seventy-five percent [of hate messages] come from anti-immigration groups. Isn’t it really interesting that Yle‘s news chose to show how the Perussuomaliset party suffers [from hate messages]. According to Iltalehti, very few PS politicians said they were intimidated by hate speech.

Purra, who usually doesn’t speak anything more than bad about migrants, especially people of color, claiming they are unemployable freeloaders, and blasting black rapists as “human scum,” is the wolf guarding the sheep in the Yle story.

As she is interviewed by the reporter, Purra sheds crocodile tears to the camera about how she is a victim of hate.

“Today I received a letter from a person in Kuopio,” she said with a poker face, “where the person hopes that I die of cancer or get run over by a car. I’m told that I am a terrible person and that this curse will happen.”

Some friendly advice to Purra and her party: Stop victimizing migrants, stop your cooperation with neo-Nazis, and other Islamophobic far-right groups. Stop spreading hate.

It’s high time that Finland and the government start dealing with hate speech and racism.

This is not a request, but a demand.

  • A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Council of Europe: Mayday, Mayday, Finland must get a grip on rising hate speech, racism, and implement trans rights

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

In the face of rising hate speech, racism and the lack of trans rights, the Council of Europe Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) called today on Finland to tackle such social issues.

ECRI added: “[t]o tackle growing racist and intolerant hate speech, better coordinate integration activities for immigrants and review the law requiring transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their new gender legally recognized.”

Finland’s hostile environment against migrants and minorities is a Mayday call to do something.

Read the full ECRI statement here.

But how can anything effective be done if Finland’s second-largest political party in parliament, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, are spreading ethnic hatred and demanding to do away with hate speech laws?

How much harm and fuel to the fire of racism is spread when politicians like PS First Vice-President Riikka Purra near-constantly attacks people of color by labeling them “human scum.”

Adding to the problem are mainstream parties like the National Coalition Party and Center Party that give mixed messages on accepting the PS as a future partner in government.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that one of the big problems in Finland is enforcement of hate speech laws. For some, the police are seen as part of the problem.

Even so, ECRI said that “it welcomes the adoption of a new anti-discrimination law and the prohibition of ethnic profiling, as well as measures taken to combat hate speech, including the setting-up of Hate Speech Investigation Teams in every Police Department.”

Some 900 Finnish police officers have received training on preventing and combating hate crimes.

* The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

The dark racist side of Finland, the Nordic country with the best education system, home of equal rights and all that blah blah

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Helsinki City Councillor Abdirahim Husu Hussein, who is now giving racists and parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* a taste of their own medicine proves a point: There is too much racism in Finland, and too little is done to counter it.

Disagree? How many hate speech, hate crime, and cases involving racism ever reach the courts? How long does it take to reach the courts? How many get convictions?

After receiving countless racist insults and recently a letter with a death threat and a piece of rope tied as a noose, the insults, death threats, and racist harassment against Hussein continue.

Hussein’s case is a sad reminder that even if we have good laws against racism and hate speech, too little is done to enforce them.

Attacks against Hussein continue and show that Finland does too little to counter hate speech and racism.

Racism and hate are like a rabid dog that some politicians walk to impress and lure their voters. They forget, however, that that dog knows no master and can bite back hard, very hard.

* The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Finland and the police should wake up to the menace of hate speech and hate crime

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Helsinki city councilperson Abdirahim Husu Hussein received a letter Wednesday with a death threat and a piece of rope tied as a noose. While it is clear why this happens, we should ask why it continues to happen and with such impunity.

Having lived in Finland for many years, one matter I learned at an early stage is that there is a strong racist undercurrent in Finnish society. This ever-toxic murmur of that undercurrent has turned today into a mix of blind rage and a sense of impunity.

Another death threat was sent to Helsinki city councilperson Abdirahim Husu Hussen Wednesday. The note reads: “ “N-word. Don’t mix in what Finnish politicians do. You heard of Martin Luther King. He was an n-word and look what happened to him. Greetings from the Ku Klux Klan.” Source: Facebook.

Do you need more hard proof? The sources of such hatred are more than clear since words have consequences.

The challenge is if we want to open ou eyes to such threats and actually do something about them.

One Finnish party that bases 90% of its political message on catering to the anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam vote bursted into the political scene with a vengeance in the 2011 parliamentary election. In a matter of four years, it saw the number of MPs rise from 5 to 39.

While there are many factors fo the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in 2011 and during this decade, one matter is for certain: its anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam message has struck voter gold.

Too many of us, not Migrant Tales, played down the PS victory of 2011 and what it meant for the country. “The Perussuomalaiset* will implode soon,” was a common excuse you heard for not doing anything.

Even if it is clear that there is a connection between the rise of the PS and hostility towards migrants and minorities, the police, politicians, the media, and policy-makers share equal responsibility.

Finland has some of the best laws that promote social equality and ensure that everyone, irrespective of his or her background, is equal before the law. The problem, however, is that such laws are not enforced as they should.

If we are all equal before the law, why is it that in 2019 white Finnish women make 0.80 euros compared with a white Finnish male’s euro? Why do migrants make on average 0.50 euros, according to researcher Pekka Myrskylä?

The answer to that question is clear: The police, like society, don’t consider racism and discrimination a high priority. Moreover, convictions for racism and hate speech are too lenient, even a joke in some cases. A perpetrator can be slapped with symbolic fines totalling 60 euros.

Such fines, as PS MP Ano Tutiainen said earlier this year, are “a feather in one’s cap.”

Hussein’s death threat is just another example of how ineffective our society is in combating racism and hatred. If Finland does not wake up to the social ill, matters may speed out of control like they have in the United States and recently in neighboring Norway.

Racism and hate are like a rabid dog that some politicians walk to impress and lure their voters. They forget, however, that that dog knows no master and can bite back hard, very hard.

* The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

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Junes Lokka’s “racist” and “Nazi clown” case: Court sends clear message who has racist immunity in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

When white people decide what is racism and what the boundaries are, they mess up and make matters worse for migrants, minorities and Others.

What are we supposed to make out of this? A well-known anti-immigration activist with ties to neo-Nazi and Islamophobic groups is called in a closed Facebook group by a journalist “a racist” and “Nazi clown.”

A district court of Oulu, where some sexual assault cases by migrants has turned the city on the fringe of hysteria, rules in favor of the Islamophobe and wins the case against the journalist for defamation. Is this another example of how people like Lokka have kidnapped common sense in Oulu?

Johanna Vehkoo’s lawyer Martina Kronström told Yle that “her client was stunned by the outcome and intended to appeal the verdict.”

And so are we at Migrant Tales.

Not only does the ruling show how much out of touch was the district court of Oulu about racism and hate speech, it sends a clear message who has racist immunity in Finland.

If you are a white male in the police service it is ok to make racist remarks. If you are a white woman calling somebody a racist and Nazi, then it is not ok even if that person was convicted for ethnic agitation.

Read the full story here.

Disagree?

Remember a closed Facebook group with 2,800 members who were police that openly insulted non-white Finns and asylum seekers? When Longplay exposed the Facebook page last year, where Vehkoo writes, no charges were eventually brought against the group because the prosecutor stated that the many racist messages were not intended to be publshed outside the group.

What about Johanna Vestola’s comment?

 

 

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY: The police’s and media’s double standards and racial baises

Posted on by Migrant Tales

“We read about two cases involving 10-year-old girls who were attacked and were not white and Muslims. In the case of Oulu, where the police were especially active together with Yle and other media in racializing the sexual assault cases, should we be surprised that this way of looking at things is a one-way street? 

The actions of the police and the media expose double standards that show in turn their racial and ethnic biases.” 

Continue reading “QUOTE OF THE DAY: The police’s and media’s double standards and racial baises”

Attacks against Soini, Ahmed and the Muslim community of Finland are symptoms of our silence

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What do the attacks against Blue Reform Foreign Minister Timo Soini in Vantaa Sunday and today against Left Alliance MP candidate Suldaan Said Ahmed tell us about today’s Finland? For one, they tell us of a troubled country that has been asleep to the threat of far-right extremism,  Islamophobia and other forms of racism. 

While we should denounce formally all forms of violence, it is ironic that Soini, who gave xenophobic extremists a political platform, saw a member allegedly of the far-right vigilante gang, Soldiers of Odin, try to attack him.

It is pretty disheartening to see the monster that Soini help created trying to attack him after he had relinquished the PS’ leadership in June 2017 to his foe Jussi Halla-aho.

Ahmed states that the attack against him was by a man in the Itäkeskus metro station.

Ahmed tweets: “I was just attacked at the metro station and the aggressor scolded me for being, among other things, an infidel and pedophile. Don’t dream that you will go to parliament.”

Apart from the far-right violence that has a strong dose of Islamophobia, graffiti was painted on a mosque in Helsinki with the same words that the New Zealand killer wrote on his weapon that took 50 lives: “Remove kebab.”

See original Facebook post here.

The Imam of the Helsinki mosque or prayer room, Abbas Bahmanpour, said that it was the third time the building was recently attacked.

“These types of graffiti show sympathy for terrorists and far-right ideology,” he said.

In Oulu, where another mosque that has been vandalized nine times since September 2017, has now voluntary guards outside the premises after one of the suspects in the sexual assault cases of Oulu was convicted last week.

“Every Friday during prayer time we want to make sure that we are safe,” said Islamic Society of Northern Finland Iman Dr Abul Mannan. “We asked the police to patrol between noon and 1:30 pm when a lot of people at the mosque but they didn’t come. We then decided to take matters in our hands and use our people to guard the mosque.”

See the MTV news story here.

Migrant Tales published a story on Saturday about how Muslims in the northern city of Kemi are especially afraid to walk outdoors alone at night after the Oulu sexual assault cases became public in December.

Continue reading “Attacks against Soini, Ahmed and the Muslim community of Finland are symptoms of our silence”