If there is something to reinforce from the Southern Ostrobothnia district court ruling of the Fares Al-Abaidi case, it is the following: In some cases, the police and the courts play down racist crime.The sentence was a miscarriage of justice.
Al-Abaidi has appealed the ruling.
Why is the ruling a travesty?
Because racism is a toxic component of Finland’s police and justice system.
Imagine scores of people attacked Al-Abaidi in June 2020, but only oneperson was convicted for assault. Racism was not a motive for what happened.
The Iraqi youth’s case is an example of hair-splitting and a miscarriage of justice.
If the authorities are to be believed, racism was not what motivated the attack. The vandalized car that had mamu (a racist term for migrant) sprayed on its side does not prove anything because they never found the suspect.
The victim’s car before……and after. Photo: Mari AaltolaMari Aaltola writes: “What I saw [the vandalized car] was unbelievable. I asked myself who could do something like this to another person’s property, smash every window, tear out the hubcaps and then spray paint in big letters mamu on the side of the car. I was also saddened by the sight and cried and [remembered when] I went with Fares to buy the car. He spent all of his and some of his mother’s savings to buy the car. The car was in bad shape, but I was happy that I had advised them to take full insurance coverage for the vehicle. This allowed them to get compensation for a new car after the insurance company repossessed it. Otherwise, they would have lost all the money since the culprit[s] were never caught [by the police].”
The recent parliamentary election in Sweden is only one of the worrying signs that Islamophobia is not receding in the EU but gaining strength. Muslims, like other minorities, must work together to challenge Europe’s ever-growing anti-Muslim racism. We must do this not only for ourselves but for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The editors of the European Islamophobia Report 2021 are Enes Bayrakli and Farid Hafez.
In Finland, we supposedly live in the happiest country in the world. Even so, the biggest opposition party is Islamophobic and openly hostile to minorities. Even “straight” parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) flirt, spread Islamophobic rhetoric, and support such policies.
You can access the full European Islamophobia Report 2021 here.
If the latest 2020 hate crime report is anything to go by, Muslims continue to suffer the most from hate crime attacks. Due to their “foreign-sounding” names, discrimination in the labor market is also a problem. Moreover, racism in the police continues to be a blow to trust, and the blind spot of the media to Islmophobia is equally worrying
The election in Sweden was of special interest to me since I live next door to the country in Finland. Will the good showing of the far-right Sweden Democrats boost our far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party in the April parliamentary election?
While it is fair to predict that the election result in Sweden should not hurt the election prospects of the PS, I am certain that the party took a lot of notes from the election and is now drafting a campaign strategy that hinges on migration.
Like many, I am not surprised by the election result in Sweden and the rise of the Sweden Democrats. Considering that all the Nordic countries now have large far-right parties that wield political power, it was only a question of when the chickens would come home to roost in Sweden. In Finland, the PS plays the same anti-Muslim tune as in Denmark (Social Democrats today and formerly Danish People’s Party) and Norway’s Progressive Party (FrP).
How can affluent countries with a comprehensive social welfare system that values and professes social equality end up with far-right parties that are hostile and want to exclude people from society who come from different backgrounds?
If we can’t receive an answer to the latter question, could we figure out how got here? Possibly we were always there. Our Nordic social welfare system and values were not meant for people who aren’t like us.
While some will blame migrants for the success of the Sweden Democrats, I would point the finger at the media and political parties like the Moderates, which gave the far-right party a platform of legitimacy to strike.
As of September 11, the future looks bleaker in Sweden and the Nordic region if you are a migrant or minority.
The Nordic saw a predictable political earthquake on September 11, when the right-wing bloc led by the far-right Sweden Democrats nudged the right-wing bloc to victory. The election brought Sweden in line with its other Nordic neighbors: all four now have or had large far-right anti-immigration parties.
Of the four countries, the entrenchment of the far right is best seen in Denmark, where mainstream parties like the Social Democrats tow the Islamophobic line.
The far-right Danish People’s Party came to power in the early 2000 and had steadily worked to turn Denmark into a haven for anti-Muslim rhetoric and hatred.
In light of what happened in Norway and in Finland, what will be the path of the Sweden Democrats to implement their Islamophobic policies?
Step 1 was the election. Step 2 is polluting Swedish politics with more racism. Like in Denmark, “straight” parties like the Moderates or Social Democrats may rob the Sweden Democrats of their support by becoming as Islamophobic as them. It is what happened in Denmark.
September 11 is a bad day for many: 9/11 and the coup in Chile that ousted democratically elected Salvador Allende.
That infamous day will also be remembered when far-right politics came home to roost in the Nordic region.
This is Part 2 of Tariq’s* ordeal in Finland. Go here to read Part 1.
“This is my case:
I have been living in Finland for eleven years. I moved here to be with my wife, and upon arriving, I started to work and study at the same time. After three years in the country, my ex-wife wanted a divorce, and we separated on friendly terms. I lived in Kanta-Häme area for four years.
My ex had a close friend working as a police officer in the Kanta-Häme region, and he was dealing with immigrant cases. I was invited to his office after my divorce and was questioned on the details of my divorce process to see if I still had legal reasons to stay living in Finland. I was working at the time and received a study place shortly after.
I moved to the Helsinki region and started my new life. Later, in Helsinki, I went to the police station to ask for some information. After getting my documents to process my request, the office informed me that there was something written in my info about me that I was completely unaware of and still don’t know exactly what it is. He took my residence permit card and told me to wait. He returned after some minutes with his supervisor, they asked me to follow them inside the station, and I was questioned on issues like what I was doing here since my divorce.
I told them I was studying and had about three months left to complete my graduation. He informed me that the police had canceled my residence permit and that I had thirty days to leave the country or be deported. He took my residence permit away and refused to give it back when I asked.
I asked him whether he had the right to take my permit away, and his answer was that he had the right to do so. I left the police station and went to meet a lawyer. I explained the situation, and she told me he had no right to take my residence card. Immediately she called the police officer that had taken my card away, and she told him that he didn’t have the right to do that by any laws since I hadn’t broken any laws in Finland. He said that he had an order from the Kanta-Häme police to take my permit away on site.
I have been officially asking the police about this order, but I have been denied access to my info here in Finland.
After this incident, I was forced to quit school with three months left. I had to find a job and then apply for a residence permit based on my work contract. I was also denied the permit because my salary fell short of a hundred euros from the minimum, which you have to have to finance my life here. They informed my boss directly that I didn’t have a valid permit and couldn’t work because of that. My boss contacted Migri [Finnish Immigration Service] and told them that I was doing my job, they were happy with me and didn’t understand why I couldn’t get the necessary permit to continue.
I didn’t stay waiting and so went looking for a new job, with a higher salary of about three thousand euros and with that I appealed against their decision, but again they refused. This time, I changed jobs to apply for a residence permit.
Since this time, I have been harassed by the police. For some reason, I just started getting a lot of traffic fines. I received tickets for speeding and reckless driving from the police without evidence, such as dashcam videos. Went many times to court due to these fines since I contested them, but in court, I always lost. The court told me they don’t think the police can lie. Also, during one stop a policeman was shouting and cursing at me when approaching; for this incident, I had a witness in the car with me. I took the fine to the court, where the case went on for seven hours with my lawyer Miro Delgado. The judge ultimately decided that I was fined wrongfully, and the fine was canceled. The two policemen weren’t reprimanded for their behavior or wrongfully giving me the fine. I had to sell my car because of this continuous harassment.
During the time we were going through this process, I started a new relationship, I got married, and was granted a residence permit for family reasons.
In 2016 I applied for citizenship, it normally takes one year to get a decision, but in my case, it took the immigration office three years to give me a negative answer. The negative decision was because I had been legally in the country all this time without a residence permit, which directly resulted from the immigration office’s long processing times and cancellation of my residence permit. That was also the reason for not getting permanent residence in the country.
Each migrant who survives in Finland deserves a medal for heroism.
Tariq* has lived in Finland for over eleven years. If there is a person who has run into complications with the police, Migri (Finnish Immigration Service), and due process, he is one of them.
According to Tariq, his citizenship process has been arbitrarily delayed due to a police fine that was canceled.
“In March last year, the police was called by some security guards for resisting arrest,” Tariq said. “In the first place, security guards cannot arrest you. The police came, they did not hear my side of the story, and they slapped me with a fine.”
Each migrant who survives in Finland deserves a medal for heroism.
Tariq alleged that the security guards had hurt his hand. He wanted to go to the hospital but was not taken there.
“At the time [of this incident], I was applying for Finnish citizenship [a second time],” he continued. “Due to the fine, Migri stopped the application process until the issue was resolved.”
Tariq inquired about the fine around the end of August and found out, to his surprise, that the police had canceled it.
Incumbent Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson conceded defeat in Sweden’s nail-biter election to the rightwing parties led by the far-right Sweden Democrats, reports The Guardian.The rightwing parties received 49.6% of the votes, with the left bloc securing 48.9%.
If anything, it was a long overdue nasty surprise that permitted a far-right Islamophobic party to gain power in Sweden. Today, all Nordic countries have large far-right Islamophobic parties spreading fear and hatred against vulnerable migrants like Muslims and people of color.
While it is unlikely that the Sweden Democrats may hold ministerial posts, the new government led by the Moderate Party may resemble what happened in Denmark. In Denmark, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP) supported minority governments in return for tightening immigration policy
In the lowliest of political stunts to gain power, the Social Democrats in Denmark took up the rhetoric of the DPP and won the elections in 2019. The Danish Islamophobic party saw its popularity nosedive by 12.4 percentage points to 8.7% (16 MPs) from 21.1%(37 MPs) previously.
Sweden will elect 349 MPs of the Riksdag (parliament) today, and the big question is how well the far-right Sweden Democrats will fare. According to various opinion polls, the Sweden Democrats are seen coming second after the Social Democrats. The biggest upset would be the Sweden Democrats doing better than the conservative Moderate party.
Just like the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in 2011, the Sweden Democrats scored their best election victory in 2010 by almost doubling their support to 12.9% (+29 MPs to 49MPs) from 5.7% (20 MPs) in parliament.
Even if Sweden Democrat chairperson Jammie Akesson assures us that the party has moved away from its racist and neo-Nazi past, some are not convinced.
Up to now, all mainstream political parties in Sweden have blocked the party from forming part of a government.
Why all the commotion and support for the Sweden Democrats?
It’s the same story in all of the Nordic Countries: migration.
In Finland, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* plays the same toxic tune as in Denmark (Social Democrats today and formerly Danish People’s Party), and the Progressive Party (FrP) of Norway.
In Denmark, the Islamophobic narrative has taken hold of the country’s political environment, and the same is happening in Finland and Norway. A big victory for the Sweden Democrats today could shift matters in the country for a long time.
Two rulings in two important cases involving ethnic profiling and suspected hate crime are a further stain on the credibility of the Finnish police. One of these took over six years to get a just ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court, and another one just slapped the hand of the suspect lightly.
Ethnic profiling, which the police have vehemently denied in Finland, saw its date in court after a long, winding, and painful process for the victims.
The legal path of singer Musta Barbari’s mother and sister to the Supreme Administrative Court:
They were stopped on July 9, 2016, by plainclothes policemen in the Helsinki city center on suspicion that they were prostitutes;
The mother and sister refused to give their ID and were found guilty in December 2017 by the police of disobedience;
An appeal was made to the National Non-Discrimination and Equality Tribunal, which found the police guilty of ethnic profiling and ordered them to pay a conditional fine of 10,000 euros to Musta Barbari’s mother and sister;
In April 2021, a Helsinki Administrative Court overturned the National Non-discrimination and Equality Tribunal’s decision;
On Thursday, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland overturned the Helsinki Administrative Court’s ruling.
The ruling in favor of Musta Barbari´s mother and sister is another sad example of how Finland shuts its eyes and ears to the social ill of institutional racism. You can seek justice if you are very patient and willing to take a beating.
“I’m no longer engaging with white people on the topic of race. Not all white people, just the vast majority who refuse to accept the existence of structural racism and its symptoms. I can no longer engage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of colour articulates their experience. You can see their eyes shut down and harden. It’s like treacle is poured into their ears, blocking up their ear canals. It’s like they can no longer hear us.”
While, after much suffering and waiting, Musta Barbari´s mother and sister saw justice, the Fares Al-Obaidi case was just starting.
The Southern Ostrobothnia Administrative Court of Seinäjoki fined and sentenced only one person when a group attacked Al-Obaidi in June 2020.
Migrant Talesspoke with the prosecutor in July. According to him, there was no hate crime case because the attack against Al-Obaidi wasn’t due to his ethnicity.
Al-Obaidi disagrees. He said that they immediately called him derogatory, racist insults like mamu and the n-word when they started to argue. Moreover, only one person was convicted because the others remained quiet.
Two stories that expose injustice and denial in Finland became public this week: First, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland ruled Thursday that the police ethnically profiled singer Musta Barbari’s mother and sister in July 2016. The other news is about an Iraqi youth who white Finns violently attacked in July 2020.
Both cases are not only concerning but revealing. Ethnic profiling and suspected hate crime cases drag their feet in Finland’s legal system. Musta Barbari’s mother and sister finally saw justice after six years, while Fares Al-Obaidi’s case was decided by a court two years and two months later.
