The government of National Coalition Party (NCP) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo looks like after a year like a wrecking ball of Finland’s social welfare state. We have already seen how his government actions have undermined the labor market, social welfare, and emboldened hostile migration policy. The next big step is the government’s plans to pass…
Tag: National Coalition Party
Finland’s shameful “let them die” MEPs: Mika Aaltonen, Pekka Toveri, Henna Virkkunen, Sebastian Tynkkynen and Katri Kulmuni
In the 2019 European Parliament election, Henna Virkkunen of the National Coalition Party agreed that the EU was not obligated to save people from drowning in the Mediterranean. She was in good company with the likes of Perussuomalaiset MEPs Laura Huhtasaari and Teuvo Hakkarainen. Virkkunen reasoned that we should stop traffickers, even if it means…
Will refugees at the Finnish-Russian border suffer the same fate as those on Greece’s Evros River and other EU borders?
“…the job of the politician is to guarantee the safety of its own citizens and to guard its borders, and that’s what Finns expect.” Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Laura Huhtasaari, A-studio (3.6.2024) The answer given by PS MP Huhtasaari to justify pushbacks and deaths is a raw example of the inhumanity used during Nazi Germany to…
Finland’s Islamophobic network
In writing the Finland chapter for the European Islamophobia Report 2023, I sometimes give a partial preview of the “Central Figures in the Islamophobic Network.” Last year’s pick could well be the same candidates for 2024. An imam I spoke to a few years ago described well the difference of the racism of the Perussuomalaiset…
Finnish government to move ahead with pushback law
Prime Minister Orpo announced today that it will give next week to parliament the Draft Act on Temporary Measures to Combat Instrumentalised Migration, or the so-called pushback law. In our opinion, the new law will not solve the problem at the border but will worsen it. Disagree? Just take a look at other EU borders, and…
MP Heikki Vestman is one of the main anti-immigration ideologues of the National Coalition Party of Finland
National Coalition Party (NCP) MP and chairperson of the constitutional committee, Heikki Vestman, is making a name for himself by promoting xenophobia. In a previous post, Migrant Tales published how Vestman was using Islamophobia and bullying tactics to gain attention and power. His rhetoric has turned him into one of the main anti-immigration ideologues of…
Finland’s spectacular fall from grace
In 2011, when the Islamophobic and anti-EU Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party won 39 seats versus 5 in the previous election, did anyone foresee that we’d end up here? Wreaking havoc are Prme Minister Petteri Orpo’s National Coalition Party (NCP) and the PS with their two government coalition partners, the Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Democrats….
The longest day of the Finnish government will come to an end
People had a saying in Argentina when de facto régimes called the shots by ousting democratically elected governments: No hay mal que dure cien años, the longest day must have its end. One matter that the new military rulers made you feel was weak and vulnerable. The saying would apply well to National Coalition Party…
Finland: Between xenophobia and a hard place
Apart from being the most right-wing government in a hundred years, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government is doing everything possible to disenfranchise migrants and minorities. We can mention raising the citizenship requirements from five to eight years and excluding Russians from having dual citizenship as indicators of how xenophobia is driving Finnish politics. One Russian…
How Yle spreads and reinforces xenophobia with the help of stenography journalism
It is surprising that Finland’s national broadcaster, Yle, spreads xenophobia and suspicion of asylum seekers via its news reporting. Yle, never calls people attempting to enter Finland via the Finnish-Russian border asylum seekers but people who are attempting to enter the country illegally. The narrative spread by Yle reporters is a toothless stenographic copy of…