Tag: hate speech

Oulu mosque vandalized for the ninth time

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

The Oulu mosque was vandalized Tuesday for the ninth time since September 2017, according to Dr Abdul Mannan, who heads the Islamic Society of Northern Finland. The police said in a statement the attack took place at 5:10 am when a suspect smashed a window with a bike rack and threw a smoke grenade inside the premises.  The fire department was called as well. 

Dr Mannan said that the attacks against the mosque are becoming too common and he is hopeful that the perpetrator is caught.

In December the mosque was attacked a seventh and eighth time.

The suspect used a bike rack to smash the window at 5.10 am and threw a smoke grenade inside the premises. Source: Dr Abdul Amman.
The prayer matt damaged by the smoke grenade (left) with smashed glass lying over the floor and chair. Photo: Dr Abdul Mannan.

“We installed a new very good surveillance system that should [hopefully] help to identify and capture the culprit,” he said.

Dr Mannan makes no effort to hide his frustration.

“I have said many times that the media is not helping the situation but adding fuel to the fire,” he said. “The most recent attack against our mosque is an example of how hate speech encourages some to acts of violence.”

Dr Mannan said that it was unfair to blame Muslims for what happened in Oulu concerning the sexual assault cases.

“None of the suspects in custody are members of our congregation,” he said. “Muslims of Oulu are law-abiding and should not be the target of people’s anger and hate.”

February 2018-2019: How a Pakistani family in Finland encountered and defied hate

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

A year has elapsed since Rashid H., a Pakistani migrant, was brutally attacked by three white Finnish youths in Vantaa on a Friday, February 23. The attack not only changed Rashid’s and his family’s life permanently, what happened also spread fear in the Pakistani community of Finland.

Rashid and his wife Sobia have two daughters aged six and one.

On visiting the couple, one of the matters you notice is not only the past but the future and their will to make the best out of a terrible situation. Rashid is recovering slowly and is on sick leave until the end of 2019.

“Rashid takes two types of painkillers and even Panadol if both don’t do the job,” she said. “On top of that, he also takes medicine for blood pressure and he is a diabetic.”

On the left, a statement by the police about what happened to Rashid. On the right is the profile picture of the new NGO, Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland, which founded in September thanks to Rashid and his wife. The picture on the right is of a man who was threatened by the Polish police.He did not want his face to appear in the picture. Source: Police and photo by Enrique Tessieri.

An important part of the recovery and healing process is getting support from psychologists, other health officials, family and friends. “Recovery sessions with the psychologist have helped us a lot but there is still a way to go,” she said.

March 2018

I met Rashid, his wife and daughters the first time at the Meilahti Hospital of Helsinki. With stitches and bruises on his body, Rashid demonstrated a strong will to recover and overcome what had happened.

“When I get out of here and get better,” he said almost a year ago. “I want to help others by telling them what is hate crime and what happened to me so that others could learn.”

The promise he had made at the hospital came true. Rashid and his wife helped found Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland (Suomen viharikosvasainen yhdistys ry) in September. On March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Rashid and Sobia will give a talk to students and migrants in Otava near Mikkeli.

The new founding board members of Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland. The NGO was founded on September 8 in Helsinki and registered on October 3 by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH). 

It’s difficult to grasp what happened to Rashid and how he survived. His attackers had stabbed him up to thirty times, fractured his skull with an axe and jabbed him several times with another pointed object. His blood stains were left near the apartment building for twenty days after the attack despite repeated calls by his wife to the social office and police to remove them.

Continue reading “February 2018-2019: How a Pakistani family in Finland encountered and defied hate”

Far-right politician Huhtasaari and the PS pull one of the oldest tricks on the media

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* vice president, Laura Huhtasaari, hit the jackpot when she attacked a Finnish school project in Tampere for “encouraging hatred.” The poster made by teenage students pitted herself and the PS’ chairperson, Jussi Halla-aho, against President Sauli Niinistö and Green Alliance MP Pekka Haavisto with the following question: towards Finland, or towards death?   

She claims without offering proof in a tweet below that “a number of students” of the school have contacted her and told her how teachers there spread hate speech and encourage hatred of politicians who were elected democratically. She continues: “This happens at an elementary and high school. The picture [below] is from a [name of school omitted] in #Tampere.”

As a result of Huhtasaari’s tweet, the school has received hate mail and even had to hire security guards to guarantee the students’ safety.

Johanna Loukaskorpi, the mayor of Tampere, said that politicians should not interfere with what is taught at school based on a curriculum.

”I think it’s most unfortunate that an MP would highlight an individual school and students in a tweet to promote her political ideology,” she was quoted as saying in the Independent. “I personally think that the poster was quite effective in that it made an impact and is thought-provoking. The school can now discuss how much of an impact a single poster can have or how an image can spread through social media to an incredible extent.”

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

Continue reading “Far-right politician Huhtasaari and the PS pull one of the oldest tricks on the media”

Exposing white Finnish privilege #51: The police are the defenders of white power and privilege

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Ask Finland’s Romany minority If you want to understand how the Finnish police service reinforces and defends white power and privilege. I did this recently, and the answers did not surprise me. 

According to a member of the Roma community, the Finnish police play down discrimination, especially if it involves a member of that minority group.

“They simply don’t care to investigate cases of discrimination against the Roma because some of them are so racist,” the person said, agreeing that institutional racism in the Finnish police service is a problem.

One of the problems with discrimination cases, hate speech and hate crime is that due process is slow and ineffective.

It is not only the Roma but migrants and other visible minorities that have to deal with a police service that takes its time big time with discrimination and racism cases.

Certainly, the question we must ask is why.

The answer: Because that is the way things are meant to be.

White Finnish privilege #51

Do I trust the police service in handling discrimination and racism cases?

Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #51: The police are the defenders of white power and privilege”

UPDATE: Prosecutor General Toiviainen will not file ethnic agitation charges against PS MP Juho Eerola

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen announced Friday that she will not file ethnic agitation charges against Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Juho Eerola, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Toivianen said in a statement that no charges will be brought against Eerola due to “a lack of evidence,” according to YLE.

Eerola is also the PS’ third vice president.

UPDATED (April 7 at 13:05): Kyösti Roth, a well-known voice of the Roma community, was surprised by the Prosecutor General Toiviainen’s decision.

“By not charging [PS MP Eerola of ethnic agitation] means in practice that anyone who wants can condemn publicly as drug dealers and criminals the Roma and Roma beggars. Is this what social equality means in Finland?”

Rikhard Blomerus, a member of the Roma minority and a substitute councilperson of Savonlinna for the Blue Reform party, filed charges last year against Eerola for ethnic agitation after he made some denigrating comments on Facebook about Roma beggars from Romania and Bulgaria.

Apart from stating that he would spit at them and take out his bank card as a form of payment, he wrote as well that the Roma are criminals. “[They are] drug dealers and criminals,” he wrote on Facebook. “If you don’t give them money they treat you aggressively; they [then] disappear.”

Sira Moksi published a cartoon (below) of what Eerola wrote.

The fact that a member of the Roma community had filed charges against Eerola caused Blomerus to get hate mail.

 

“A lot of them are angry with me,” Blomerus told Migrant Tales in August. “One was even angry because he considered it an insult that a Roma would bring charges against a white Finn.”

Continue reading “UPDATE: Prosecutor General Toiviainen will not file ethnic agitation charges against PS MP Juho Eerola”

The roots of hate crime and hate speech are in Finnish society, right under our noses

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The media and police are mirrors of our prejudices in our society. Our lame reaction to such social ills not only expose our weaknesses as a society but hide and protect the real culprit: institutional racism. 

How does institutional racism survive in Finland? The answer is easy: We shield such a social ill with our silence, the way the police treats minorities and migrants, in the hateful rhetoric of politicians like Perussuomalaiset*(PS) MP Laura Huhtasaari, to just name a few.

With the rise of Islamophobic and racist politicians assured a political career, should be we surprised that hate crimes have gone up in Finland?

Hate is a powerful force and if you think it just stops with stereotyping, belittling jokes and insensitive remarks, take a look at the pyramid of hate, think twice. Its destination is genocide.

Remember when the police started to profile pizzerias ethically? They asked customers to report establishments that sold pizzas at 6 euros or below. Lidl sells pizza at a euro 1.39. Read what the BBC of London wrote about this failed police campaign here.

The police, who are overwhelmingly white in Finland, have so much power that they even claim to know more than the victims of racism.

An unfortunate example of the latter is the vile attack against a Pakistani on February 23. The police claim that what happened to the Pakistani wasn’t a hate crime even if he suffered over 20 stabbings and other injuries. The statement was made without asking what the victim thought.

Continue reading “The roots of hate crime and hate speech are in Finnish society, right under our noses”

Finland: Retreating into a shell and fuelling xenophobia and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As Finland retreats deeper into its shell and ethnocentrism, it feeds the beast of xenophobia and racism. Apart from Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Laura Huhtasaari, who openly encourages direct violence and hatred against migrants and minorities, there are others that are just as guilty. 

Who are they?

Interior Minister Paula Risikko and former Interior Ministry official Päivi Nerg have warned us over and over how undocumented migrants threaten our security. If Risikko and Nerg told us with gusto about the threats, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government has done little to nothing to challenge such xenophobic statements.

See the full tweet here.

Volker Türk, UNHCR assistant high commissioner for refugees, said last year that labelling refugees as security threats “risks opening the door to xenophobic and racist rhetoric and can even lead to physical attacks directed against refugees.”

Continue reading “Finland: Retreating into a shell and fuelling xenophobia and racism”

Laura Huhtsaari’s “new normal” is a synonym and carte blanche for open violence and hostility against migrants and minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* presidential contender and MP, Laura Huhtasaari, claimed in her speech Sunday that populism isn’t a passing phase but will become to “new normal.” In Huhtasaari’s and the PS’ violent world that targets migrants and minorities, the MP deceives the crowd by stating this “new normal” is a good matter.

The picture below that the MP with the kindergarten teacher smile should have shown when speaking to her followers of the PS and the “new normal” should show the picture below.

Read the full story here.

While Tony Blair is a disgraced politician who led his country into the Iraqi war in 2003 by lying, his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, lacks credibility. How can you trust a former prime minister that misled his country and the Western world with then US President George W. Bush into a disastrous war?

Continue reading “Laura Huhtsaari’s “new normal” is a synonym and carte blanche for open violence and hostility against migrants and minorities”

Laura Huhtasaari show us the way up the pyramid of hate

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Staying on the topic of Perussuomalaiset* presidential candidate Laura Huhtasaari, I took the liberty to ask her a question on Messenger. To no-one’s surprise, she didn’t care to answer my question. 

I wrote: “Hey! You speak a lot about ‘Finns’ but who are these ‘Finns’ [you so often speak of]. Are they all those who were born in Finland? Black Finns? Muslim Finns? Argentinean Finns? Could you explain and state clearly what you mean by ‘Finns.’ Thank you.”*

A question arises from these types of “us” and “them” labeling: Where are they supposed to lead us? First, it was uncommon in Finland to have politicians like Huhtasaari openly label and blacklist migrants and minorities. Today, her hateful speech is “normal.”

If you want a harrowing answer, check out this blog post. If we study the pyramid of hate, the final stage is genocide. It’s an escalation of hatred that leads to the annihilation of a group.

One example was the scapegoating and outright hatred against the Jews and other minorities in Germany in the 1930s.

The final stage of racism and hatred is genocide.

Is this where politicians like Huhtasaari and her band of Perussuomalaiset [1] want to lead Finland?

Continue reading “Laura Huhtasaari show us the way up the pyramid of hate”