Tag: Islamophobia

UPDATED: Muslim girl beaten unconsious by fellow children in the Finnish city of Espoo

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: This story below received a lot of attention on social media. Even if some of the claims made in the picture aren’t apparently true like tearing off of the girl’s hijab (veil),  there are other sources close to the parents of the girl that contradict and put in question the police’s and school’s claim that racism did not play a role in what happened. Please read an updated version here. 

A ten-year-old Muslim girl was allegedly beaten in Espoo, according to MTV. The picture of the victim was posted on Instagram and Snapchat. The victim was left unconscious due to the attack, according to sources that contacted Migrant Tales. 

MTV, which did not mention the religious background of the victim, said that the suspects were around 10 years old.

Migrant Tales will continue reporting on the story as it develops.

Picture of the alleged unconscious child posted on Instagram. The original picture was updated 19.12 at 10.20 am.

(UPDATED): What do they teach [children] at Finnish homes? That Muslims are terrorists? The little girl [in the picture above] is spending a normal day at school when four boys [classmates] tried to rip off her hijab from her head and kicked her unconscious. We are not talking now about a migrant but about a victim. @iltalehti [tabloid] I want you to write out loud that racism must stop once for all, this girl is an angel!

QUOTE OF THE DAY: The victim of rape and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

“What similarities are there between the victim of rape and racism? Deniers of rape blame the woman for causing the man to rape her. Deniers of racism blame the victim for causing the man or woman to insult him or her.

Racism feels like being raped. Racism and rape are chronic social ills. Arguments used to give such ills cover and aim to perpetuate them and dilute the victim’s suffering.”

Statement Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland: Two reports that should worry us

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STATEMENT

ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND*

SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY

FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF

December 2, 2018

 

TWO REPORTS THAT SHOULD WORRY US

This week Finland got cold water thrown at it from two reports that reveal hate crime and Afrophobia are serious problems. One may rightfully ask how a country like Finland, which claims to have one of the best education systems in the world, can do so little to stop such hatred.

On Wednesday, a European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) study revealed that of the 12 countries surveyed, Finland was the worst place to be a person of African descent.

The following day, the Police University College released its hate crime report for 2017, which saw hate crimes rise by 8% to 1,165 cases compared with 1,079 the previous year.

One of the most worrying matters that the report revealed was the 58% rise in attacks due to religion. As in previous years, most hate crimes (69.8%) were due to ethnic or national background while 20.1% were motivated by the person’s religion.

Interior Minister Kai Mykkänen said in parliament that the FRA report sends a clear message to the whole of society. According to him, Finland is repeatedly at the top of hate crimes and hate speech charts of Europe.

Even if the government and Minister Mykkänen may express concern about the rise in racism in Finland, it is clear that too little is being done to tackle such social ills.

A good example is a recent case of a black woman who was called the n-word in a harassment case. Even if the woman reported the incident to the police, the men got a 60-euro fine for insulting her. There are many other examples. Even educators, who should know better, play down or don’t believe that there is racism in Finland.

With respect to hate crime and hate speech, it’s clear that the on-going fear mongering, insufficient outrage, and the tightening of immigration laws have contributed to making Finland a hostile environment for migrants and minorities, especially for people of African descent and Muslims.

As we see it, we have only ourselves to blame as a country for the rise in hate crime and hate speech. One perpetrator is the government, which has had since 2015 an Islamophobic party as its member.

It would be naïve, even reckless, to claim that only a change of government will improve things.

We have seen social movements and courageous people like Rosa Parks stand up to racism. Finland needs such people now more than ever.

 

For more information contact:

 

Enrique Tessieri                                                   Ahti Tolvanen

chairperson                                                          secretary

040 8400773                                                      046 8129790

[email protected]

www.facebook.com/nohatenetwork

@NoHateNetwork

* Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland was founded in September and registered as an NGO in October. The aim of the NGO is to tackle and eradicate hate crime and all forms of discrimination in Finland such as anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, misogyny and other forms of social exclusion through education and training, seminars, events, conferences, among others.

 

European Agency of Fundamental Rights: Finland has the most racial harassment cases against PAD of 12 EU countries surveyed

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A new study by the European Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveals that a third of people of African descent (PAD) surveyed have experienced racial harassment in the last five years. That’s not all: Perceived racist harassment was highest in Finland (63%) and least prevalent in Malta 20% (see chart below).

“It is a reality both shameful and infuriating: racism based on the colour of a person’s skin remains a pervasive scourge throughout the European Union,” writes FRA director Michael O’Flaherty in the report’s forward. “…It is a reality both shameful and infuriating: racism based on the colour of a person’s skin remains a pervasive scourge throughout the European Union.”

Finland’s dubious ranking as the highest five-year rate of perceived racist violence against PAD has only ourselves to blame and a result of our lost decade (2011-2019), where we allowed racism and our silence to create the hostile migrants against migrants, especially PAD, today.

Migrant Tales wrote: “Why are the Center Party and National Coalition Party in bed with an anti-immigration and nationalist party like the PS [Perussuomalaiset]?*”

Such a bedfellow has cost Finland dearly in racism, discrimination and hostile environment.

Read the full Guardian story here.

Continue reading “European Agency of Fundamental Rights: Finland has the most racial harassment cases against PAD of 12 EU countries surveyed”

Far-right vigilante group Soldiers of Odin provokes migrants in East Helsinki

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Without anything better to do than to provoke visible migrants, some 30 members of the far-right Soldiers of Odin were at East Helsinki’s Puhos shopping mall on Monday, according to a video by Finnish Somalimedia Warsan.

According to the Helsinki Times, “shoppers and visitors of the mall were frightened by the group and stayed inside the shops. The show off seems to have gone without incidents or violence. Police presence can also be seen In the video, although they do not seem to interfere. ”

While the Soldiers of Odin have not given any statement about their presence at the East Helsinki shopping mall, it’s clear that the far-right group, which has close ideological ties with neo-Nazi groups, is desperate for attention.

Apart from some cities in Finland like Kemi, where the group is active, the original aim of the Soldiers of Odin is to protect Finnish white women and children from Muslims.

The Finnish police’s and media’s ambiguous stand against the vigilante group gave it some acceptance in Finland.

One may rightfully ask why was it so difficult for the police and media to grasp immediately that the Soldiers of Odin are a symptom of a social ill.

The answer is obvious.

See the video here.

The Puhos mall was in the news in February when the police, Border Guard, health officials carried out spot checks at the East Helsinki shopping center.

Migrant Tales wrote back then:  “While it is a good matter that the Helsinki police service is accountable for its actions, the tweets say nothing about the police’s alleged behavior at the mosque. Why did they spot check everyone who entered and left the mosque? What about the police dog and the shoes? There is no tweet about a policeman who allegedly snapped back and said that ‘this was his country’ and that he had a right to ask the person for his ID.”

Finland knows that it is in demographic hot water but leaves its future woes to chance

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A new forecast by Statistics Finland tells us what we’ve known for a long time: We are in demographic hot water and our population will start to shrink and get older, according to YLE News. Net immigration will keep up present population levels at 5.6 million until 2035, but will decline to 5.5 million in the 2050s. 

YLE News writes: “In 2010, the average number of births per woman in Finland was 1.87, compared to an average of 1.49 children per woman in 2017 — the lowest level in Finnish history. The overall fertility rate in 2018 is expected to decline to 1.43 and the last time that the birth rate declined as much in consecutive years was in the 1960s.”

As population forecasts show, Finland needs to take steps to increase its low birthrate and lure migrants to the country.

Using the roughly 35,000 asylum seekers that moved to Finland in 2015-2016 as an example, it’s clear that Finland and the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) have shown their usual hostile face to migration.

Read the full story here.

Even if common sense tells us that Finland needs more migrants, luring newcomers to the country is easier said than done.

Continue reading “Finland knows that it is in demographic hot water but leaves its future woes to chance”

The PS and Blue Reform of Finland are an aberration and should be voted out in 2019

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I have never believed or trusted the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* even if some were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after their historic win in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Some claimed that it would only be a matter of time when they imploded.

The implosion of the party happened in June 2017, or six years later.

Finland holds parliamentary elections in April 2019. This may mean the near-end of two parties that have only sowed divisions and hatred of migrants and minorities. They may become a taxi or mini-taxi party (all of its MPs can fit in the back seat).

Migrant Tales has always been highly critical of the PS because it is an anomaly in Finnish politics.

Blue Reform, the faction that split from the PS in 2017, is just as bad, if not worse because they are in government.

The former party likes to let racism hang out while the latter coats it with sugar.

Both are disgraceful examples of Finland’s political system.

We have said tirelessly since 2011: The PS, and after 2017 Blue Reform, are chronically xenophobic and Islamophobic parties openly hostile to those who are different from them.

The briefing on the Finnish elections reads: Finland’s Fate — “We are not extremists so you can sleep safely,” says the head the country’s ascendant ‘True Finns’ party (yes, that’s their real name). Of course, not everybody agrees: “Far-right populism is an illness inflicting Europe at present and it now has a beachhead in Finland,” writes Enrique Tessieri. Read the original briefing here.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way. .

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.

Laura Huhtasaari: The Perussuomalaiset MP with the sinister kindergarten-teacher smile

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With parliamentary elections in April, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Vice President Laura Huhtasaari is busily fear-mongering us about how Finland is losing its identity and how Islam is on track of taking over Europe. 

Don’t be fooled by her clean looks that hide a white supremacist behind her sinister kindergarten-teacher smile.

An avid mouthpiece of Islamophobs in Finland,  she is also a blind follower of President Donald Trump and Hungary’s strongman, Viktor Orbán.

Huhtasaari has plagiarized her thesis and other people’s writings.

An excerpt of an opinion piece by her summarizes everything that she spews about migrants and minorities in this country.

She claims that the PS will keep Finland white nationalist so vote for that party in the April parliamentary elections.

Her concerns:

  1. We don’t want our population and culture substituted (for Islam/foreign ones);
  2. We don’t want Finland taken over by Islam;
  3. We don’t want people in our streets to be substituted for women and girls wearing veils.

While these campaign promises are grounded in fear and racism, it is unfortunate that too few politicians in this country want to change those very structures that make racism, discrimination and Huhtasaari-like politicians possible.

The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way. .

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.

Racism, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Words can turn into bullets and corpses

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Recently we have seen the consequences of hatred towards minorities in the United States: The cold-blooded shooting of an alt-right suspect that attacked a synagogue killing 11 people in Pittsburgh, the killing of two African Americans in Louisville, and mail bombs sent to Democrats and liberals who oppose President Donald Trump.

This is the United States under an administration and Republican control of the House and Senate spewing hatred against minorities. Imagine, President Trump, wants to send the army to protect the US border with Mexico against Central Americans fleeing political violence that the United States has caused.

Here is one survey by the EU that reveals Islamophobia in Finland. Source: Discrimination in the EU in 2015.

Continue reading “Racism, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Words can turn into bullets and corpses”

Xenophobic and pro-Russia online publication MV-lehti founder Ilja Janitskin slapped with 22-month prison sentence

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THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Migrant Tales applauds the sentencing by the Helsinki District Court on Thursday of Ilja Janitskin, the founder of the xenophobic website MV-lehti and Uber Uutiset, on 16 criminal charges. Janitski was handed a twenty-two-month prison sentence and with two others found guilty, was ordered to pay the biggest share of damages amounting to 136,000 euros. 

In another twist to the story, which YLE News does not report on, the BBC also describes Janitski’s publication as anti-immigration, Europsceptic, and pro-Russian.

Writes YLE News:  “Some 90 criminal complaints related to the site were filed in connection with the expansive case, including aggravated defamation and ethnic agitation.”

While some, like Professor Matti Tolvanen, see the sentence as a blow to the spread of hate speech in Finland, Migrant Tales is not as optimistic but considers it a right step in the right direction.

The far-right and Islamophobic voice in Finland has found a platform through publications like MV-lehti and the Perussuomalaiset party.*

Read the full story here.

The 16 crimes thatJanitskin was convicted of included: three counts of aggravated defamation; two counts of aggravated incitement against an ethnic group; three counts of copyright infringement; two counts of breach of confidentiality; two counts of illicit gambling charges; and four counts of illicit fundraising charges.

Continue reading “Xenophobic and pro-Russia online publication MV-lehti founder Ilja Janitskin slapped with 22-month prison sentence”