Länsiväylä is a community newspaper that lives off advertising revenues. One story on Ukrainian refugees raking a park in Kirkonnummi, a city near Helsinki, is another chapter in framing Ukrainian refugees as “good” refugees, while similar people from the Middle East are viewed as “bad” refugees. One PS politician states: “These Ukrainians are pretty different…
Tag: Muslims
Back to square one: To hijab or not to hijab?
Twenty-year-old Fardowsa Mahamoud’s questioning why the hijab, or veil, is not permitted in the Finnish military brought a sense of déjà-vu. About six years ago, Busman Gill Sukhdarshan Singh won after a year-long legal battle to wear a turban at work. In Finland, Sikh bus drivers won the right to use turbans at work, while in…
Intimidating Farid Hafez and state Islamophobia in Austria
Islamophobia in all of its forms is cancer that is spreading at this moment throughout Europe. People who attempt to stand up to this social ill are intimidated and attacked. Farid Hafez, whom I know personally and edits the European Islamophobia Report, the most comprehensive report published annually on the topic, is charged for alleged…
Another reason that reinforces Denmark as one of the most Islamophobic countries in the EU
Who could forget the former minister of immigration and integration, Inger Stojberg? Apart from her Islamophobic rhetoric, she is also remembered with a cake celebrating in 2017 the 50th tightening of Danish immigration laws. There seems to be no shortages of Islamophobic politicians in Denmark. The former minister is in a lot of hot water…
The tragic deaths in France expose the disenfranchisement of Muslims
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. James Baldwin (1924-87) Ir, there is one matter that the killings in France have reinforced, it is the disenfranchisement of the Muslim community of France. How…
Finland’s populist party’s #coronavirus kiss of death to minorities it wants to oppress and forsake
One of the matters that the coronavirus has exposed as well. is how populist anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* assail migrants and minorities, especially Muslims. Helsinki Mayor Jan Vapaavuori was quoted as saying in statement that he is concerned by the rapid rise of coronavirus infections among the Somali speaking community. “Close to 200…
The framing of Muslims and minorities by the Finnish media and other toothless stories
If I had to choose the worst journalism in Finland this year, that would be the media coverage to the sexual assault cases of minors that took place from November 2018 to before the parliamentary elections of April 14. If you speak with some Muslims in Oulu, they will tell you that the hysteria died…
Kuopio tragedy: The Muslim “terrorist” and the “mentally troubled” lone wolf white guy
The tragedy that took place Tuesday in Kuopio, which claimed the life of a person and left ten injured, including the suspect, raises a lot of questions. One of these is if we should treat what happened as a terrorist act or just some mentally troubled lone wolf? The National Board of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi) Detective…
Oulu’s knee-jerk reaction to the sexual assault crimes will do a lot of harm to the city’s image. Blame the media, police, politicians.
The question Migrant Tales asked a while back if the City of Oulu’s decision to ban visits by asylum seekers to child care centers and schools is legal. Can you ban a single group, in this case, asylum seekers, from visiting such places? As far as how the law works in Finland, the ban should…
Count to ten when people talk about migrants “embracing Finnish values”
I will count to ten very slowly if I hear one more time, just one more time from a politician, that migrants should embrace Finnish values. Most of them, when they make that ethnocentric statement, don’t tell us never mind give us a clue what those “Finnish values” are. Do they even know?