Tag: Islamophobia

Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen states there “is no room in Finland for Sharia law”

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Finnish Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen surprised participants at an Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations  (ETNO) meeting on Tuesday by stating that “there is no room in Finland for Sharia law or other efforts towards a parallel society,” according to YLE News.

“Finland is an open, international country that is rich linguistically and culturally, and where basic rights belong equally to everyone… Finnish justice gives equal protection to everyone, regardless of skin color, religion, gender, culture or other background[s],” he was quoted as saying.

His comment caused a swift reaction from politicians like Social Democrat Helsinki councilperson Abdirahim Husu Hussein, who wrote on Facebook that the minister of justice “was flirting with Islamophobia” and that “nobody was demanding Sharia law in Finland.”

 

Read the full story here.

What “parallel society” is Häkkänen speaking of? Is it the one he is nurturing and encouraging by his hostile statements?

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New investigation finds Laura Huhtasaari’s plagiarism of master’s thesis more extensive than originally believed

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A new investigation of the plagiarism of far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party vice president and MP Laura Huhtasaari’s master’s thesis showed that “major parts” were copied and were more extensive than Jyväskylä’s University’s conclusions, according to YLE News.

An investigation by the university earlier this year of Huhtasaari’s plagiarism showed about 10% was copied, but an investigation by MOT journalists revealed that about 30% of her thesis was directly copied from just one source.

Here is the question: Why does the university say one thing and the MOT journalists’ report says another? Will there be another investigation?

The fact that the university came to one conclusion and an investigation by YLE showed more extensive plagiarism does not make the university look good. If Jyväskylä University wants to protect its credibility, it would be vital for it to answer the MOT journalists’ findings.

Before the master’s thesis scandal in January, Reija Härkönen revealed how Huhtsaari had plagiarised the writing of others in her blog entries.

* After the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 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.  One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic. 

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.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Tightening of immigration laws in Finland and the exploitation of migrants

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The near-constant negative labeling of visible migrants like Muslims and minorities by too many Finnish politicians and society has not only weakened their civil rights, as Amnesty International pointed out, but led to their exploitation by dishonest and greedy employers that promise them a job and a ticket to a residence permit.

Anti-immigrant forces in Finland create a criminal environment for the exploitation of asylum seekers and migrants.

 

Finland’s hostile environment for migrants, asylum seekers, and all types of minorities

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At Migrant Tales, we are hearing more and more stories about the suffering and plight of undocumented migrants and how greedy companies are taking advantage of asylum seekers. Some of these that we have heard are asylum seekers working full-time in black for 500 euros a month and a promise that they will get hired as staffers, which would help them to get a residence permit. Or what about working 12 hours for 50 hours a day but only declaring 30 hours to the tax authorities?

While it is questionable that such a person would ever get a residence permit because of the needs test, or that the job is first offered to an EU citizen, the inequalities and exploitation found today in the Finnish labor market is the doing of our politicians. They have created the bait and lure for such exploitation to take place.

In the political rhetoric and crusade to make Finland unattractive to future asylum seekers, politicians have lost total sight of how their policies have weakened the rights of all migrants and other vulnerable groups. Their message is clear: It is ok if you are exploited in Finland. We don’t care because we do not want you here in the first place.

Like in the UK, Finland is presently gripped by a hostile environment against migrants and minorities.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Theresa May, when she served as home secretary (2010-2016), is credited for the government’s “hostile environment” policy towards undocumented migrants. Since you cannot keep hatred on a short leash and cause it to act selectively, that hostile environment has spread to the Windrush generation,  the first wave of immigrants who arrived in the UK in the 1940s and 1950s from the West Indies.

Even if May is responsible for this hostile environment, it was all part of a broader scheme to take voters away from UKIP, which based its then rising popularity on attacking and stigmatizing migrants.

The political opportunism in the Tory party’s anti-immigration rhetoric already costs the UK dearly. They are not only in its anti-immigration soundbites but in the fact that they believed they could control such a social ill and keep it on a short leash.

Epic fail.

Elsewhere in Europe as in countries like Finland, there is a hostile environment against migrants.

The hostile environment in Finland is possible thanks to the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and by other mainstream parties, like the Center Party, National Coalition Party, Social Democratic Party, which give the same message but in a different langauge.

Amnesty International’s Annual Report 2016/17 highlights below some of the factors that created a hostile environment in Finland.

Source: Amnesty International Report 2016/17.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: The Finnish media’s hidden racism

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“The fascination of the Finnish media for racist statements by politicians like Laura Huhtasaari is the real culprit behind the spread and normalization of racism in this country. If I had to give a grade to the Finnish media on how it handles stories about diversity and racism, I would give most of them a fail.”

Disagree? Just read all the racist things the media wrote about the Somalis who came to Finland in the early 1990s.

Finland’s media is not more balanced when reporting about stories on cultural diversity. That is a Halla-aho myth.

The Finnish media is more hostile than before. Politicians from mainstream parties like the National Coalition Party, Center Party, and all others contribute to the hostile environment against migrants and minorities in Finland.

Why is MTV so interested in what Laura Huhtasaari says when her minor party* is not in government and her comments are in the spirit of Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán? Source: MTV.

* After the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 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.  One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic. 

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.

Islamophobia is the fear that white Christian Europeans will lose power and privileges to minorities. Disagree? Ask a Muslim woman

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A French appeals court upheld this week a ruling that denied an Algerian woman citizenship because she refused to shake the hand of a French official, according to The Local. The woman cited “religious beliefs” for not shaking the official’s hand. The appeals court defended the decision not to grant citizenship because the woman, who is married to a French man since 2010, had “not assimilated into the French community.”

The most recent example of questionable “French assimilation” is not the only one that we could cite. Last year, a French court ordered a store in Paris run by a Muslim to close because it refused to sell pork and alcohol.

In 2010, France denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman because she wore a burqa. The court ruled that this was incompatible with French values because they came from the “radical” practice of Islam.

After the terrorist attacks of 2016, some cities in southern France banned the use of burkinis. Remember the picture of the Muslim women on the beach forced to take off her burkini by French police officials?

France passed a law in 2010 to ban face covering. This law targeted Muslim women who used the niqab or burqa in public spaces.

Below are some tweets from 2016 that highlight the absurdity of such bans.

One of the most prized values of our way of life in Europe, and which the court overruling of the Algerian woman’s appeal exposes as hypocritical, is that European nationalism, deeply embedded in the exploitation of minorities here and abroad through colonization, continues to be the rule.

The crimes committed by Europe in the exploitation, genocide, slave trade and post-colonial world are so grave that Europe has to fear what will happen if a day of reckoning will dawn on us.

I once asked Swedish MP Malcolm Momodou Jallow his definition of Afrophobia.

“It is the fear of the white majority losing its p0wer and privileges to blacks,” he said.

Continue reading “Islamophobia is the fear that white Christian Europeans will lose power and privileges to minorities. Disagree? Ask a Muslim woman”

Another case of an Iraqi asylum seeker married to a Finn with a five-month child who may face deportation

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Just like Abdul, the Iraqi asylum seeker who is married to a Finnish woman expecting their child in September, Ibrahim* is the latest case of another asylum seeker denied a Finnish residence permit by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri). The Iraqi asylum and his Finnish wife Inna have a five-month-old child.  

It took a year of waiting for Ibrahim to get his residence permit rejected in January by Migri when his wife applied for family reunification.

“We have appealed to the administrative court the rejection which is unfair,” said Ibrahim’s wife Inna*.

Other legal matters concerning Ibrahim’s residence have fueled uncertainty for the family. One of these, are seven appeals to overturn Ibrahim’s deportation orders from Finland after being rejected twice for asylum by Migri.

Migri has the power to ask you anything they even if their questions are humiliating like, question #48, “You[r] spouse is pregnant. Who is the father of the child?” What about this one, question #41: “Will your spouse turn into a Muslim” or  question #40, “How do you feel about your spouse’s religion?”

Inna stated that she worries and fears near-constantly that the Finnish police may come any day and deport her husband back to Iraq.

“We live on the fifth floor,” she said, “sometimes when I hear the elevator or people knocking at our door, I fear that it may be the police that has come to deport my husband. We thought it would be a good idea if Ibrahim would attend swimming classes with our newborn but we decided against it because of fears that the police may apprehend and deport him.”

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Pressiklubi gives simplistic, apologetic view on how the Finnish media is “more balanced” today when writing about non-white Finns

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It is surprising to hear how some politicians and journalists continue to have simplistic and apologetic views of racism and bigotry in this country. If YLE’s Päivi Happonen and Atte Kaleva’s words are to be believed on Pressiklubi, the Finnish media has finally woken up and writes more balanced stories about migrants and minorities that live in Finland. 

After Ruben Siller’s exit, Sanna Ukkola became Pressiklubi’s host. Don’t be surprised why her guests are who they are and say what they say on her program. Ukkola is married to Matias Turkkila, who has launched an all-out war against migrants in Finland through the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and hate platforms like Hommaforum.

When Kaleva claims, like on the show, that there are two extremes in the debate on our ever-growing culturally diverse society, what he is suggesting is that racism and bigotry aren’t issues in our society but only a consequence of the “two extremes” debate.

The way I see it, the rise of a party like the PS and their supporters in other parties have bulldozed and reaffirmed white power and privilege.

Here is what is really weird about Finland. White Finns (without usually the participation of migrants and minorities) can agree that we have to hear the other person’s opinions even if if is racist. What would they say if we spoke in the same disrespectful manner about women? That discussion would be off limits but the one relegating migrants and minorities to third-class members of society isn’t.

Päivi Happonen claims on Pressiklubi that the Finnish media reporting about migrants is more balanced. Even so, she forgets to mention that the reporting and narrative of the media is anchored in a very biased view of cultural diversity because the media is white and Christian.

As a minority who has lived in Finland for over thirty-five years, as a journalist that wrote for all the main publications of Finland, who has worked as a foreign correspondent in Finland, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Colombia, I consider Happonen’s and Kaleva’s affirmation oversimplistic and apologetic.

Racism and bigotry are deeply embedded in Finnish culture. We should ask minorities like the Roma, Saami and stereotypic portrayals of migrants for decades by the media if it were ever that “friendly.” On the contrary, the Finnish media has been the tool of power, and it has been used relentlessly against Others.

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Four questions about the Finnish chapter of The State of Islamophobia in Europe report

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The State of Islamophobia in Europe report was published on Monday. Linda Hyökki, is the researcher who did the report on Finland. Migrant Tales asked her four questions about the report. 
Linda Hyökki*
Migrant Tales (MT): What surprised you the most about doing the last report on Finland?
Leena Hyökki: “There were no drastically surprising changes when compared to the previous years’ reports. Islamophobia in its nature as a social phenomenon as well as in its manifestations within structural discrimination remains to be throughout the years. Political discourse, grassroot organizations spreading hate speech, demonstrations against alleged “Islamization”, microaggressions, as well as (mostly) Muslim women’s victimization have continued from 2015 (and before) up until now.
MT: In 2017, the PS imploded. Do you see this as a retreat for Islamophobia in Finland?
LH: I do not think so. Islamophobia is not only dependent on one party’s politics. Manifestations of Islamophobia in social life do reflect political discourse – especially when politicians Islamophobic statements are taken as a form of normalization of racism and hostility towards Muslims, kinds of legitimization of the discourse from top down – but civil society in large have their own impact on politics (we live after all in a democratic society!).

Finland must stop locking up asylum seekers and their children

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The picture of one of the seven minors detained at the Joutseno immigration removal center in April 2017 should shock us all. That picture, the asylum policies of the Finnish Immigration Service, and the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä are destroying the very values of our Nordic welfare state. 

The picture below of the young adolescent by the metal bars of the window and barbwire, the overcast day and her hopeless gaze reveal our silence and complicity.

When we see and hear the rants and arguments of Islamophobic politicians and their followers, the most complicit are those who remain silent and “follow orders.”

How can we claim to be a fair society that promotes social equality if our behavior towards others is totally the opposite or in a Mr. Hyde mode?

The family of nine was granted a one-year residence permit. In an interview published Saturday in YLE, the parents of the children state that their children are traumatized by what happened at the immigration detention center. The children never sleep alone but together, according to the parents.

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