Perussuomalaiset Archives - Page 34 of 161

The first anniversary of 1/6: A hammer blow to democracy, our democracy as well

Posted on January 6, 2022 by Migrant Tales

As we return to that horrible day of January 6, when former President Donald Trump supporters invaded the Capitol and whacked the foundations of US democracy, we should ask how much of a blow that infamous day was for our democracy in the EU and Finland.

The bad news is that matters in the US will get much worse before they improve. As everyone should know, racism, fear, and political greed by autocrats to the US’ growing diversity is at the heart of the January 6 violence.

**Insurrection? Coup attempt? Tour guide? Source: Washington Post**

Apart from racism, capitalism and the smell of money have enticed the country to flirt with a right-wing dictatorship.

Certainly, exceptionalism and the blindspot to enforce adequate checks and balances is one of the main culprits. It comes in the form of denial and burying your head deep in your colon.

Can the same happen in Europe, in Finland?

All we have to do is turn the clock back 89 years to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his vehemently anti-Semitic and racist government that led to a global war that killed tens of millions of people.

Like Hitler, Trump was also considered a joke. Few, during the 2016 presidential primaries, thought he could win the election.

Hitler’s fuel was the unfair Versaille Treaty, anti-Semitism, and racism. Scapegoating the blame on minorities paved the way to Nazi power.

The PS and its enablers are the wrecking balls of Finland’s social welfare democracy

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Migrant Tales

I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.

James Baldwin

If some scholars sound the alarm bells that democracy in the United States could turn into a right-wing dictatorship that has the potential of sparking a civil war. How should Finland prepare for such an eventuality?

Writes Thomas Homer-Dixon, a Canadian political scientist, in an Op-Ed: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.”

The European think tank, among others, label the United States as a “backsliding democracy” in a new report.

While former US President Donald Trump has spread the big lie about the 2020 election that has turned the Republican Party into a personality cult, it is a different story in Finland even if the threat is the same.

While it should be clear that a party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, which is eager to strip minorities of their human rights and relegate them to second- or third-class citizens, the party is the best example of Trumpism in Finland.

The PS has not made its admiration for Trump a secret. Former PS leader Jussi Halla-aho – like other PS politicians – do not hold back their admiration for Trump and his racist and autocratic political message.

**Jussi Halla-aho has backtracked on his 2019 claim that he digs Trump and is the best thing that has happened to the United States and to the West in a long time**. **Source: Twitter**

Like the United States, Finland has seen its society become ever-polarized thanks to the politics of the PS and its enablers, which undermine our Nordic political institutions. If Trump’s big lie is the “stolen” election, which Joe Biden won hands down, in Finland, it is immigration and other populist soundbites.

A question to the Kankaanpää police: Was a proper investigation carried out on the burning of an asylum reception center in 2015?

Posted on December 19, 2021 by Migrant Tales

In 2015, when a record number of asylum seekers came to Finland, a number of attacks were carried out against asylum reception centers. One of these was in Niinisalo, located a stone’s throw from Kankaanpää, where over two weeks ago a group of white Finnish terrorist suspects was detained by the police.

While a lot of questions abound about the motives and ideology of the white Finnish terrorist suspects, there is one question that needs an answer.

For those who don’t remember, a building going to house asylum seekers was set alight and razed to the ground in December 2015 in Niinisalo. Perussuomalaiset* MP Juho Mäenpää, elected to parliament in 2019, claimed jubilantly after the arson attack: “Great. There is a god. My prayers have been answered.”

I interviewed Mäenpää and asked him about the arson attack. “Politicians should wake up to the situation [of asylum seekers],” he said, “if they don’t it could spark a civil war.”

The person thanking God for the burning of the future asylum center and threatening a civil war is none other than Mäenpää, who is Southern Ostrobothnia district manager of the far-right and Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association. During a session of parliament in 2019, he labeled asylum seekers “an invasive species.”

**On the left the future asylum reception center razed to the ground in Niinisalo and (left) Mäenpää thanking god for burning it down. Sources: *Yle* and Twitter**

The sources of Finland’s far-right problem: downplaying and denial

Posted on December 18, 2021 by Migrant Tales

“The main agents of ideological violence are not isolated ‘lone wolves’ but are usually interconnected with communities, non-violent agents and legal entities, at times even including connections to law enforcement personnel.”

Mihai Varga

Over two weeks have elapsed since the police announced the detention of five white-Finn terrorist suspects in the Western Finnish city of Kankaanpää. Reaction to the detention has varied, but one matter is for sure: Denial shrouds our ability to identify and challenge the social ill.

The terrorist suspects of Kankaanpää are no joke. They meant business but does Finland mean business when challenging such groups? Is our exceptionalism blinding us from tackling the social ill? Photo: Police

Denial comes in many ways:

The terrorist suspects are a lone detached splinter group
Even if the suspects had committed acts of violence and promoted their far-right white nationalist ideology in Kankaanpää before, the rector of the Satakunta University of Applied Sciences (SAMK), Jari Multisilta, downplayed the threat
Contrary to what some students felt that SAMK hadn’t given them enough support, Multisilta was quoted as saying in Yle that there was no threat to the fine arts campus in Kankaanpää by the suspects and that the authorities had not been in touch with the university
The fact that the police had not been in contact with SAMK about the threat reveals how they may have downplayed the problem in Kankaanpää
In 2015, a new asylum reception center was razed to the ground; we still don’t know who the possible suspects are and if like-minded groups carried it out
Yle A-studio airs over a week after the detentions a talk show about far-right violence with researcher Leena Malkki and police Superintendant Jari Tapanen
If the detained suspects were Muslims, a talk show and reaction would be much swifter
In the talk show, the rise of far-right terrorist violence is blamed on social media and an issue facing young people
There is no mention about how Finnish society and the police are responding to the rise of far-right terrorism and ideology
There is no mention about how Islamophobia can be a bridge between far-right ideology and terrorism
Why didn’t the A-studio program bring up how the rise of populist parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, far-right associations like Suomen Sisu among their ranks and their close links with even neo-Nazi groups promote far-right ideology are fertile ground for acts of terrorism?
The PS is the biggest party of the Kankaanpää city council
Why do we still know so little about this group and other ones that may be conspiring to carry out acts of terrorism?

Downplaying and whitewashing the far-right threat in Finland

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Migrant Tales

It is disappointing to note that it took Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, five days to write an editorial on the threat posed by the far-right after the detention of five white Finns on Friday. Considering the media attention and general outrage in general that Abderrahman Mechkah knife attack caused in Turku in 2017, a question emerges: were the suspects in Kakaanpää the wrong type of terrorists?

**Pictures apprehended of the terrorist suspects. Source: Police**

Moreover, the suggestion that the Kankaanpää suspects were some isolated splinter group detached from society is an example of how the problem is being whitewashed. As Mihai Varga stated: “The main agents of ideological violence are not isolated ‘lone wolves’ but are usually interconnected with communities, non-violent agents and legal entities, at times even including connections to law enforcement personnel.”

The PS was, is, and will be a party with close ties to neo-Nazi and fascist groups

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Migrant Tales

From the days when Timo Soini headed the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party to the present, there’s one denial coming from the party that is an outright lie: The PS is not a far-right party with links to neo-Nazi, fascist and far-right groups.

I could list several examples, but let’s look at Kansallismielisten liittouma, a perfect example of the PS links with far-right groups. Eight of the 13 persons (61.5%) in the picture below are or were PS members.

Remember when PS MP Juho Eerola’s aide, Ulla Pyysalo, was caught seeking membership in Pohjoismaisen vastarintaliike (PVL), a neo-Nazi association?

There are many, many other shameful examples. You would have to be very susceptible to believe that the PS is not a far-right party set on destroying our democracy and Nordic way of life.

One notable guest of Kansallismielisten liitouma is Antti Niemi, the former head of PVL’s Finnish chapter.

How long will Finns put up with these types of politicians and parties and vote them out of power?

A trail of xenophobic and far-right violence in Finland and yet no suspects

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Migrant Tales

The detention of five far-right terrorist suspects in the western Finnish city of Kankaanpää Friday raises many questions. One of these is the collaboration of this group and others in the burning down of an asylum reception center in December 2015.

The asylum reception center in Kankaanpää wasn’t the only one that suffered arson attacks.

Former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP, Ano Turtiainen, was convicted in 2018 for inciting violence against the Finnish Red Cross, which manages many asylum reception centers. The conviction has its roots in a 2015 Facebook post “liked” by PS MEP Laura Huhtasaari.

If we connect the dots and start asking the right questions about what happened from 2015, the answers we may get can be revealing exposing strange and not-so-strange bedfellows.

Moreover, it would be wishful and careless thinking to believe that the terrorist suspects in Kankaanpää acted alone and were totally detached from society.

Mihai Varga hit it right on the dot: “The main agents of ideological violence are not isolated ‘lone wolves’ but are usually interconnected with communities, non-violent agents and legal entities, at times even including connections to law enforcement personnel.”

For those who don’t remember, a building going to house asylum seekers was set alight was burned down in December 2015 in Niinisalo, located a stone’s throw from Kankaanpää. Perussuomalaiset MP Juho Mäenpää, elected to parliament in 2019 but a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association, claimed jubilantly back then after the arson attack: “Great. There is a god. My prayers have been answered.”

Far-right terrorism in Finland has many direct and indirect supporters

Posted on December 3, 2021 by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

The main agents of ideological violence are not isolated “lone wolves” but are usually interconnected with communities, non-violent agents and legal entities, at times even including connections to law enforcement personnel.

Mihai Varga

Five white Finns were detained Tuesday and remanded by a Satakunta District Court Friday, at the request of the police, on suspicion of terrorist offenses, according to a statement by the Southwestern Finland Police.

The police said that this far-right suspected terror offense is the first in Finland.

**The face of Finnish far-right terrorism. Source: Southwestern Finland Police.**

“We have found in their possession terrorist material which, when examined in conjunction with other criminal investigation material, reinforces the impression that they have become radicalized and gives reason to suspect them of terrorist offenses,” said Detective Superintendent Toni Sjöblom, head of the investigation.

While the detention of this group is good news and no longer poses a threat, the interesting question is to see the reaction.

If the suspects were Muslims, Finland would have a serious knee-jerk reaction from Islamophobic parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), and others to draft tighter terrorist laws and more surveillance powers to the police.

Five white Finns arrested on suspected terrorism charges

Posted on December 3, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Five white Finns born between 1995 and 1998 were arrested Tuesday by the police on suspected terrorism charges, according to Pori-based daily Satakunnan Kansa. The five suspects are from the Western Finnish region of Kankaanpää.

The police did not call the suspects white Finns but stated that they had “ethnic Finnish names.”

The police and the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) will hold a press conference at 6 pm to release more details like the detention of the suspects and the danger they posed to the public.

Tweet #1: “Police of southwestern Finland arrest five people suspected of terrorist offenses. The Satakunta District Court will decide on the matter today.” Tweet #2: “The police suspects that the individuals planned a terrorist act. There is no acute danger. The suspects live in the Kankaanpää region of Satakunta. Police arrested the suspects on Tuesday. Police will comment further at the media conference tonight.”

A Finnish Islamophobic party’s recipe for inclusion and ethnic understanding

Posted on November 29, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Since the 2011 parliamentary elections, which saw the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party win 39 starts from 5 seats previously, it has systematically tarred and feathered migrants, especially Muslims, people of color, and specific minorities.

Should you be surprised that all PS MPs elected in 2019 based their campaign on an anti-immigration message.

The PS demands that Finland should strive for zero asylum seekers (code for Muslims). Those that remain in Finland must endure the constant racism, labeling, and bombardment of their group.

PS MP Minna Reijonen epitomizes this toxicity in a question to the government during a session of parliament.

Source: YouTube

MP Reijonen parrots the PS’ populist and racist stance of migrants and minorities, planting the seeds of future social strife.