Tag: Islamophobia

A feature about a PS white supremacist and how the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) normalizes racism and bigotry

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Northern Finnish Kemi city councilperson Harri Tauriainen is a white supremacist that is head over heels about US President Donald Trump. In a sloppy human-interest story about Tauriainen, the state-run Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) makes no mention of the councilperson’s racist and bigoted political views except him denying that he’s a racist and neo-Nazi sympathizer. 

The Finnish media, like other media in the EU, has difficulty in grasping how racism impacts migrants and minorities since they are white.

In the YLE story, there was no mention as well of Tauriainen’s most infamous quotes like, “It’s incredible that this human trash [convicted foreign criminals] aren’t put in their places. Put a stamp on their asses and deport them for good from Finland.”

Read the original story here.

But if the YLE reporter appears to suffer from convenient amnesia, she could take the trouble to see one of Tauriainen’s latest Facebook posts on how “hate speech is legal in the United States,” and how “illegal human trafficking rages on.”

In the story, YLE only had nice things to say about Tauriainen even if it mentions the far-right vigilante group Soldiers of Odin. The reporter even played down the 47.4% plunge in votes he got in the 2017 municipal elections from 2012.

Migrant Tales will go even further to help the YLE reporter to understand who Tauriainen is and what he symbolizes to our ever-growing culturally diverse society.

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Is Hanna Mäntylä qualified to advise the European Council on youth radicalization?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Are you ready for the following news? New Reform MP and former Perussuomalaiset* social and health minister, Hanna Mäntylä, is going to be named as a special advisor to the European Council. Her expertise will be used to challenge youth radicalization and marginalization. 

Yes, right. I too fell on my back when I read the news on YLE.

If we look at Mäntylä’s past record as minister and her former statements on cultural diversity, it’s clear that they fuel inequality and radicalization and don’t lessen them.

Should we be surprised that Mäntylä will form part of such a European Council committee? I wonder what former New Reform Foreign Minister Timo Soini had to do with Mäntylä’s naming?

One of her plans as social and health minister was to pass new legislation that would grant migrants less social welfare than native Finns. Fortunately, such a law did not see the light of day since it was unconstitutional. This was part of an 80-point government plan to tighten immigration laws.

Migrant Tales wrote in 2015:

“The government now hopes with the 80-point plan to not only make life difficult for asylum seekers, and in turn for all migrants and minorities in this country but introduce policy changes that are unconstitutional. PS Social Welfare Minister Hanna Mäntylä has been eager to lower subsidies to asylum seekers that get a residence permit.

 

Read the full story (in Finnish)  here. Subsitute MP Visa Riskilä will replace Mäntylä.

Another important question we should ask if Mäntylä qualified for the job?

Spreading anti-immigration rhetoric and polarizing Finnish society don’t make you an “expert” on how to stop youth radicalization.

Moreover, Mäntylä was a suspect in a social welfare fraud case. but was saved from going to court thanks to statute of limitations, which had expired.

 Mäntylä resigned as minister in 2016 due to “family problems.”

She has been largely absent from politics in her northern Lapland province.

* 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 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 thereafter the acronym PS.

 

The Finnish media gives a lot of space to Halla-aho and the PS but none to us

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It’s clear that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is a different party after this weekend, when Jussi Halla-aho, Laura Huhtasaari, Teuvo Hakkarainen and Juho Eerola were elected to lead the anti-immigrant and anti-EU party. Halla-aho spoke of in his policy speech of “nationalistic forces,” which is code for anti-immigration, anti-cultural diversity and anti-EU policies. 

Halla-aho said that the PS should align itself with such forces in the Nordic region, which means Islamophobic parties like the Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party of Norway.

Halla-aho will meet at 10am with Center Party Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and National Coalition Party head Petteri Orpo about whether the PS will continue to be in government.

Read the full story here.

Considering that Halla-aho and PS second vice president Hakkarainen have convictions for ethnic agitation, and that Huuhtasaari and Eerola have a dubious reputation because of their acceptance of fascism and hostility towards cultural diversity, it is surprising that no newspaper in Finland asked a single Somali Finn, Muslim or visible minority what they thought about the “new” PS.

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The PS steers further right exposing its shameless Islamophobia, racism, bigotry and ultranationalism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Like rubbing salt on Finland’s wound, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* newly elected chairman Jussi Halla-aho’s far-right anti-immigration policy got reinforcement after three Islamophobes were elected to lead the PS: Laura Huuhtasaari, Teuvo Hakkarainen and Juho Eerola were elected first, second and third vice-president, respectively.

Center Party Prime Minister Juha Sipilä stated Saturday that the election of Halla-aho meant that the PS is a different party when led by former chairman Timo Soini. ”The Perussuomalaiset is a completely new party with new policies now,” Sipilä was quoted as saying Saturday in YLE News.

 


The new chairman of the PS refusing to resign in 2012 because the sentence handed to him by the Supreme Court on ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion was “a personal interpretation.” Source: Migrant Tales.

 

The most interesting issue to watch isn’t what the next move of the newly elected board of the PS will be, but what will be the reaction of the party’s coalition partners, the Center Party and National Coalition Party. Will the PS exit or remain in government?

Will they let Halla-aho and his band of Islamophobes slide and will we see something politically toxic like in Denmark emerging? The PS has always had a semi-secret love affair with the Danish People’s Party (DPP). They have now come as close as ever to being that type of party in Finland.

The DPP thrives as we can see below on Islamophobia and spreading anti-immigration rhetoric in Denmark.

Source: Migrant Tales.

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Finnish municipal elections analysis: Anti-immigration and us-vs-them politics aren’t sustainable

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the most important lessons of Sunday’s municipal elections is that the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, and especially its conservative anti-immigration message and wing, are the biggest losers. 

Since the party’s historic election victory of 2011, when it gained 39 seats in parliament from 5 previously, migrants, minorities and our ever-growing culturally diverse community has been the target of a hostile campaign by the PS.

Ever since the PS’ election victory of 2011, the right-wing populist party has made migrants and asylum seekers their favorite political target. Of all the Finnish parties, the PS are the only ones that have openly tried to capitalize on anti-immigration sentiment.

While the National Coalition Party won its third-straight municipal elections on Sunday with 20.7% of the vote, it was followed by the Social Democrats (19.4%), Center Party (17.5%), Greens (12.4%) and Left Alliance and the PS, which gained 8.8% apiece.

If the Greens made the biggest gains and the PS was the biggest losers, the Social Democrats were clearly a disappointment. Being in the opposition, their result was near-flat from the previous municipal elections of 2012.

 

 

With 100% of the votes counted, KOK (National Coalition Party) won and was followed by the SDP (Social Democratic Party), KESK (Center Party), VIHR (Green Party), VAS (Left Alliance), PS (Perussuomalaiset), RKP (Swedish People’s Party), KD (Christian Democrats) and MUUT (Others). Source: Helsingin Sanomat.

In many respects, the disastrous election result of the PS has come as sweet and long overdue payback for that party’s hostile and near-constant attacks against us. Outgoing PS chairman, Timo Soini, who has led their party since 1997, has played good cop, bad cop with the media.

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Finnish ministry of interior survey about our “polarized debate” on asylum seekers reveals the government’s prejudices and failures

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A new study published Tuesday by the interior ministry and carried out by Vaasa University raises some disturbing questions. What does the survey address and what does it reveal?

One of the many claims of the survey is that those surveyed want a more dispassionate public debate about asylum policies.

An interior ministry statement reads: “Finns would like to be able to discuss asylum policy without the fear of being stigmatized; the discourse should be relevant and fact-based. The issues that were highlighted in the discourse on asylum policy were social polarization, promotion of integration activities during the asylum seeking process and the impact of the asylum seeker situation on security.”

Other findings of the survey reveal already known tough public views about asylum seekers. For example, 82% of the respondents felt that it should be made perfectly clear to those asylum seekers that get a residence are obliged to follow our social rules  and that language courses should be emphasized (87%).

The survey doesn’t tell us what those “rules” are for the simple fact they most likely don’t know either.

Read the full statement here.

Other findings of the survey published in Helsingin Sanomat include: 83% responded that if an asylum seeker lies in the the interview process to get asylum it should affect directly his or her chances of getting a residence permit; 78% felt that the police should forcibly deport those who get rejected for asylum if they do not leave the country.

Other matters that the survey showed was that asylum seekers cause social conflicts (59%), increase crime (57%) and the threat of terrorism (64%).

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Behind Timo Soini of the populist Perussuomalaiset party is a hefty and mini #socialmediafrankenstein called Jussi Halla-aho and Sampo Terho

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the biggest questions some observers have asked for a while in Finland is what political house of horrors will appear after Timo Soini retires and the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* return to the minor political leagues? We got the first glimpse of that answer today when PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho announced that he too is vying for chairman of the party. 

Soini, the PS’ long-term leader who will step down in June after leading the right-wing populist party for 20 years, has given a home to eccentrics like Halla-aho, among many others.

This time, however, matter didn’t go according to plan as he got bit by the same anti-immigration forces he unleashed against our ever-growing culturally diverse community.

The whole story of Soini’s political creation, the PS, could be summed up in two scenes from the 1930’s classic Frankenstein.

The first scene below is when Dr. Frankenstein creates his monster.

In the second scene the monster destroys his creator.

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Day 25 of the Helsinki demonstration by asylum seekers: We are happy that you are a thorn in the government’s and Migri’s side

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Twenty-five cold days have elapsed since a group of asylum seekers decided to exercise their democratic rights and protest deportation and the government’s strict asylum policy.  The longer these demonstrators protest the deeper the thorn will penetrate the government’s and Finnish Immigration Service’s (Migri) side. 

The government’s and Migri’s tough stance against the demonstrators is and will turn against them. Why? Because they base their hardline strategy on their own prejudices and bigotry.

The asylum seekers must know that two mainstream parties, the Center Party and National Coalition Party (NCP), have given a near-free hand to the Islamophobic and anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party to draft laws like that tightening of family reunification. They have also turned some of you  into undocumented migrants.

When I look at the actions of the government, my memory goes back to the early 1980s when Migri was run by Eila Kännö, a woman that some compared her management style to Benito Mussolini’s. The extremely strict immigration policy of Finland at the time was so much out of touch with public opinion that the then Aliens’ Office destroyed its credibility and eventually itself.

It became clear that the Aliens’ Office could no longer be run by a self-styled autocrat.

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The creation and death of the Perussuomalaiset and its #socialmediafrankensteins in Finland

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We once wrote about #socialmediafrankensteins and how Timo Soini and the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party had created such demons to victimize, attack and label migrants and minorities in Finland. Soini, a “good-cop” PS party chairman, is in reality no different from people like Jussi Halla-aho and his band of bigoted followers. 

A #socialmediafrankenstein is anyone that social media has created. For example, Halla-aho and many others of his ilk are social media creations. They have made a political career for themselves by spreading hatred and racism against other groups.

Since Halla-aho and his gang are social media creations, they are also vulnerable. One big defeat like the demise of the the PS from major league Finnish politics would spell the end for them.

The only matter that differentiate Soini from Halla-aho is that both, opportunists to the maximum, is the image of “good” versus “bad” cops. Even so, we mustn’t forget that they are still members of a party that is hostile to migrants, minorities and cultural diversity.

A while back we published a story about the creation of Halla-ahos and James Hirvisaaris within the PS.

The story of the rise and fall of the PS is like the creation of Frankenstein in the horror movie. We have, in the first video clip below, the creation of the Frankenstein monster. That scene from the classic movie could be Soini as Dr. Frankenstein and Halla-aho as the monster.

This scene could be the historical election victory of April 2011, when the PS won 39 seats compared with 5 in the previous election.

There’s a lot of excitement and jubilation due to resurrecting a person from the dead. Just like the PS, Frankenstein reaps havoc and fear and finally destroys itself.

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Migrants are “scum” and should be erased from the map say Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and other far-right politicians

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Some are asking with manifest unease if this will be the year of the far-right populists like Dutch Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen of France and Frauke Petry of the German  Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The first test will  be in Holland on March 15 followed by another nail-biter in France on April 23 and May 7.

Wilders doesn’t hide his hatred for Moroccans by calling them in the video below “scum.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3AkiWhvCYs

Emboldened by US President Donald Trump, the far-right in Europe believes that it’s now or never as far as elections are concerned.

But there is a problem: What about if Trump’s chaotic and volatile style of leadership scares voters away in Europe from voting for people like Wilders, Le Pen never mind AfD and possibly in 2018 for Italy’s Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement?

One may rightly ask how is it possible that an Islamophobic politician like Wilders is the favorite to win in March after being sentenced in December for hate speech? How can he be accused of calling Moroccan migrants “scum” and still be popular with the voters?

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