Perussuomalaiset Archives - Page 43 of 161

Sometimes the media, like HS, waters the poisonous flower of xenophobia

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Migrant Tales

The headline of a Helsingin Sanomat article sparked fear on Tuesday: “Over one hundred dangerous youths wander in downtown Helsinki – according to experts, this is a new phenomenon caused by migration.”

When the Helsingin Sanomat story was published, it spread fear and with it xenophobia.

Is the newspaper article true?

In the first place, the police reported that after the article was published, crimes committed by minors have decreased between January and September, according to Superintendent Katja Nissinen.

Writes Yle News: “The paper reported that the young people had a tendency to settle conflicts with violence and to get into scuffles with kids their own age. They also used the Snapchat app to network. Later on Tuesday Helsinki police said that a small proportion of city youths got themselves into trouble committing criminal offenses. These groups included both ethnic Finnish and foreign background youngsters.”

**Read the full story (in Finnish) here.**

One of the matters that the Helsingin Sanomat story reinforces is not only poorly researched journalism, but that xenophobia is alive and kicking in Finland.

The story by Finland’s largest daily was also a present to the Islamophobic PS and their spiteful politicians, which spread the narrative that Finland’s “harmful migration” is turning our country into a Sweden, where migrants riot and burn cars.

We saw this with the Oulu sexual assault cases last year. The reaction that the suspected crimes caused and the media’s reaction caused hysteria. Yle alone reported 77 stories on the topic, 13 on one day, about the sexual assault cases during November 27-February 13. During that period under review, the Oulu police published 13 statements on the topic.

Thus, if the spark “migrant” is linked to a crime, that is enough to ignite hysteria among the population and media.

Finland’s media should learn that you do not need a bazooka to kill an ant. In this case, the bazooka is the media and the ant “migrant” youths.

This type of journalism does nothing more than eat away at credibility and gives populist Islamophobic ammunition to parties like the PS.

Kokoomus’ Antti Häkkänen vilifies Islam, claims to uphold human rights

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

In a bid to gain voters, the National Coalition Party’s (Kokoomus) MP Antti Häkkänen and possibly the next chairperson of the conservative party spreads his anti-Islamic rhetoric, again.

For those who don’t know Häkkänen, he comes from a small town called Mäntyharju in Eastern Finland and has expressed before his extreme distaste for non-white migration and especially Islam.

During 2011-2013, he was president of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party, which idolizes US capitalism and the Republican Party. His predecessor was Wille Rydman, a well-known anti-immigration hardliner, and his successor was Susanna Koski. Under Koski’s leadership, the Youth League of the National Coalition Party aimed at doing away with legislation that prohibited hate speech and that would make redundant the then Ombudsman for Minorities Office.

As councilperson for Mäntyharju, a small town in Eastern Finland, he is reported to have declined to offer, as a show of solidarity, his small meeting fee to newly-arrived quota refugees.

His tweet below of the horrific deaths in France is no surprise.

He tweets: “The enemies of an open society try to change Europe’s way of life and destroy our values. We should not bow to such pressure. Neither bowing to Islamic terrorism nor to that of an authoritarian state. Human rights and freedom must be defended by a united Europe.”

I’m certain that such a statement gave Häkkänen and Kokoomus a lot of brownie points with voters and, possibly, their future partners in government, the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS).*

Here are some questions that I’d ask Häkkänen about his pugnacious tweet:

Jussi Halla-aho is a fake and his party’s disingenuous and misleading claims

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Migrant Tales

Anyone who has followed Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho’s political career will easily conclude that it was done on the fuel of racism and bigotry, and generous chunks of it.

Racism had become such a normal matter for the PS that on the same day when Halla-aho claimed on Marja Sannikka’s talk show that he “resents people being treated differently” due to their skin color, the party’s vice president lashes out against people of color.

https://twitter.com/Arskababa/status/1322284775575588869?s=20&fbclid=IwAR2FSaf7gAkHlSwx6fivBYmLfZ-Rt9ECJkxZSJnvXtQgbruejBbnV1rCdl0

On Marja Sannika’s talk show (in Finnish), Halla-aho was incapable of condemning racism.

States Purra (who calls, like Halla-aho on Sannikka’s show, asylum seekers “harmful” migration) stated on the same day of Halla-aho’s interview: “Wouldn’t it be high time to think that the mixing of people, religions, and cultures in the West is such a good matter? The development of mass migration and violent cultures is A PROBLEM. Beheading a person is only one example.”

Sannikka asks Halla-aho in the interview if he resents racism.

His response: “Yes, I resent any thinking that treats people differently because of their skin color. I do resent this.”

**Affirms Riikka Purra:** “Wouldn’t it be high time to think that the mixing of people, religions, cultures in the West [not] IS SUCH A GOOD MATTER? Mass immigration from the developing world and violent cultures ARE A PROBLEM. Beheading is just one example.”

One of the biggest challenges of Finnish journalism is follow-up. You throw a question to the person you are interviewing, and if he tries to wiggle his or her way out of it or speak in code to his followers, you hit the person with another question until you get the answer.

Halla-aho’s response if he resented racism was a half-ass job.

Diagree? Check out one of his tweets:

**Nobody in the Perussuomalaiset [party] wants a multiethnic or culturally [diverse] Finland, which consistently mentioned in our program and in everything that we do.” Source: Twitter**

Halla-aho’s answer could mean anything. It could be seen as a statement against affirmative action, equality but not equity.

No more PS BS and politicking by French President Emmanuel Macron

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Migrant Tales

“Another underlying message also becomes clear in the meantime: ‘Muslims pose a threat to our society and have to be tamed,’ which is reminiscent of the ‘civilizing’ mission of the French colonial conquerors.“

Farid Hafez*

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Any sensible Muslim or person will condemn what happened in France concerning the beheading of a teacher. As Hafez points out, the incident is being used by President Emmanuel Macron to push through his anti-separatist bill and load his guns for the presidential elections of 2022.

Guess who he is facing in the presidential election? Right. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen who has, like her father, built her whole political career Islamophobia.

An old blame-game-the-whole-group emerges.

”The state needs to understand that those who provoked chaos and terrorism did not attend mosques they were not integrated into the Muslim community, they were repeat offenders, criminals, who came and went from prison,” said The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF). “They had a path in violence, and because of this we stigmatize a whole population?”

Should we be surprised that Finland’s Perussuomalaiset (PS) party,[1] which, like Le Pen, uses Islamophobia to gain voters and political power, is crying murder?

PS MP Leena Meri threw some Islamophobic punches at the government last week and had difficulty pronouncing Black Lives Matter, which she considered a violent association.

“Honorable government,” she asked in last Thursday’s session of parliament, “why haven’t you condemned what happened [in France]? Are you numb?”

We can rephrase the question back to Meri: “Has your Islamophobic rhetoric and racism shown an alarming trend in Finland?”

Apart from the political brownie points, Macron is trying to reap, and we see the same disturbing pattern of how we label the whole Muslim community for the outlandish deed. We see this happening with the PS.

“The crackdown on more than 50 Muslim organizations, including anti-racist organizations such as the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), is the best example of what the state aims to do with this [anti-separatist] legislation,” writes Hafez in aa.com. “While the human rights advocacy group CCIF is collecting data to create awareness on anti-Muslim racism and helps the victims of anti-Muslim discrimination, the singling out of this organization reveals a very worrisome dimension of Macron’s policies: Erasing Muslim visibility from the public space altogether.”

No more PS BS and politicking from Macron.

*Hafez is a political scientist at the University of Salzburg. He is also a non-resident senior research scholar at Georgetown University’s The Bridge Initiative, and the co-author of the European Islamophobic Report.

[1]

Helsinki Times: A rebuttal to Perussuomalaiset* MPs Veikko Vallin and Veijo Meri

Posted on October 25, 2020 by Migrant Tales

Read the original posting here.

Exposing white Finnish privilege #74: The anti-Semitic beast inside Jussi Halla-aho

Posted on October 23, 2020 by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

In a recent debate with Center Party chairperson Annika Saariko, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party head, Jussi Halla-aho, was put on the hot seat after asked about his anti-Semitic blog writings.

He denied being an anti-Semite and said that the claim was a popularity stunt by Lauri Nurmi, who recently published an unofficial biography of him and made such an observation.

Why didn’t the reporter at the debate ask two questions: “Are you, Halla-aho, an anti-Semite and an Islamophobe.”

The PS and how it treats minorities, especially Muslims, expose the power and privilege white Finns have. It is like living in a near-perfect world. You can eat your racist cake with impunity and have it at the same time.

While Finland’s 100,000-120,000-strong Muslim community has little to no political power and is constantly reminded that they can never be equal members of society, the smaller Jewish community is a different story.

The Jewish community in Finland has historically suffered from anti-Semitism. A characteristic of this form of racism is that you silence the victim and plug your ears to their objections.

Matias Turkkila is the editor of the PS party’s newspaper who confirmed Halla-aho’s anti-Semitism and that of the party’s as well.

Turkkila claims that the “fierce” attack made by Yle against Kärkkäinen is part of a plan to destroy Juha Kärkkäinen’s businesses. He claims that one of the journalists that did the radio program is a member of the Left Alliance. Turkkila asks in the tweet: “@yleuutiset why do you allow a Left Alliance activist to use your platform to aim [at Kärkkäinen]?” He adds that *Yle* should follow its own rules and not publish material to advance the world view of others. Source: Twitter.

In the tweet, Turkkila overlooks or believes that we do not know who Juha Kärkkäinen is. For starters, he was fined in 2014 for publishing anti-Semitic writings of Adrian Salbuch, Ted Pike, David Duke, and others, as well as cartoons that bear a striking resemblance to the former Nazi tabloid, Der Strümer (1923-45).

The anti-Semitic writings were published in Magneettimedia, a publication of his stores that continues to be rife with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and Nazi glorification. It is today no longer edited by Kärkkäinen but by neo-Nazis.

Mitä ajattelevat Perussuomalaiset ja mitä he peittelevät?

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Migrant Tales

Keitä ovat Perussuomalaiset? Elävätkö he rinnakaistodellisuudessa tai peittelevätkö keitä he ovat todellisuudessa, eli vihaamielisia islamofoobisia, etnonastionalistisia ja maahanmuuttovastaisia?

Tässä muutamia väitteitä. Totta tai tarua?

Keltainen ei ole pelkurein* väri. Se ei ole myöskään lumenväri.

Jussi Halla-aho ei ole stand up koomikko.

Emme kannusta aparthedia.

Reija Härkönen: Kansanedustajat, olette suurelta osin vastuussa siitä, saako rasismi edetä Suomessa

Posted on October 4, 2020 by Migrant Tales

Rasismin vastustaminen ja maahanmuuttajavähemmistöjen puolustaminen tuntuu käytännön tasolla jäävän kansalaisten ja järjestöjen tehtäväksi.

Perussuomalaisten noustua suurella rasistijoukkiolla eduskuntaan vuonna 2011 kansalaisyhteiskunta heräsi. Lukemattomat netti- ja reaalimaailman yhteisöt nostavat esiin yhteiskuntamme ikävää lieveilmiötä ja yrittävät keksiä, kuinka rasismia vähennetään ja kuinka saadaan ihmiset luopumaan syrjivistä asenteistaan.

On vaikea sanoa, olemmeko loppujen lopuksi saaneet paljonkaan aikaisiksi, mutta ainakin olemme voimaannuttaneet toisiamme. Yhä useampi kansalainen uskaltaa nousta vastustamaan rasismia ja sanoa sanottavansa nettikeskusteluissa – ehkäpä naamatustenkin. Se on kuitenkin vain alku.

Rasismi ei vähene, jos sen lisäämistä johdetaan Suomen eduskunnasta. Eivät kansanedustajat ja kunnanvaltuutetutkaan taida arjessa juuri puuttua poliitikkotovereiden rasismiin. Tai eduskunnan puhemiehet – pysäyttävätkö he riittävän napakasti rasistisen puheen eduskunnan istunnoissa?

Jos puuttumattomuus johtuu pelosta, tilanne alkaa olla jo vaarallinen demokratian kannalta ja asiaan olisi tartuttava nopeasti. Jos taas on kysymys siitä, että halutaan pikkuisen sallia kansanryhmää vastaan kiihottamista, olisi demokratian säilymistä kannattavan osan kansanedustajista noustava esiin ja painokkaasti tuotava esille se seikka, että rasismia ei Suomen eduskunnassa harjoiteta. Mutta turha taitaa tällainen toive olla, valitsevathan puolueet yhteistuumin, lähes ilman soraääniä, jokaisen uuden vaalikauden aluksi ainakin yhden julkirasistisen puhemiehen.

Eduskunnan puhemiehistö v. 2015.
Sisäministeri Risikon peukutus äärioikeistolaiselle mielenosoitukselle Helsingissä 2017. Puhemies Maria Lohelan ennustus perussuomalaisen puolueen ratsastamisesta raiskausten turvin vaalimenestykseen vaaleissa 2019.

Usein tuottavat antirasisteiksikin ilmoittautuneet poliitikot pettymyksen kannattajilleen. Vain aniharva on uskaltanut (tai halunnut) asettua julkisesti tukemaan maahan saapuneita pakolaisia. Suuri joukko poliitikkojakin louskutti hätäänsä ja raivoansa Oulun raiskausten takia – ihan vain siksi, että tekijät eivät olleet supisuomalaisia.

Bedfellows Perussuomalaiset and the far-right: I’m surprised that you are still surprised

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Playing dumb or dead to the threat of far-right groups is a political statement or reveals you are either lazy, naive, or white..

While it is a positive matter that the Finnish media is shedding light on two long-time bedfellows: the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and far-right groups, even so, the question we should ask is why now if this was common knowledge for a long time?

One reason could be our propensity to play dumb or silent to the growing threat of far-right groups.

Isn’t it shameful and a slap in the face to all of our noble social welfare advancements that the biggest opposition party, the PS, is a xenophobic radical-right party?

Who cares?

A lot of people in Finland who don’t want this country to be driven by xenophobia to the lap of a Finnish Viktor Orbán are rightfully worried.

Tero Ala-Tuuhonen, the attempted murder suspect who tried to kill Pekka Kataja, is posing with some far-right Kansallismielisten liitouma activists. The circled persons all have ties to the PS. Source: Twitter

Kansallismielisten liitouma was originally founded by the Soldiers of Odin, a far-right vigilante groups that the police and many politicians supported in the face of a record number of asylum seekers to Finland in 2015.

Yes, I am surprised that you may be surprised by this fact that the PS and far-right groups are bedfellows.

Those who claim that we should ignore the racist narrative of parties like the PS and their far-right buddies are leaving our country’s future to chance.

We cannot allow this to happen.

With your help we’ll stop it and nip it off the bud.

PS MP Petri Huru and his ties with a far-right attempted murder suspect

Posted on September 13, 2020 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Petri Huru states in his Twitter account that his goal is to keep Finns safe. He is a chief fireman and a practical nurse. Noble professions but can trust Huru’s judgement?

A question: What are you, MP Huru, doing smiling in a picture below with far-right activist Tero Ala-Tuuhonden? Isn’t he the person who was arrested by the police on Friday for attempted murder?

PS **MP Huru: You have poor judgment and I would never trust you with my life. You are also a big fan of PS MEP Laura Huhtasaari. Source: Twitter**

Even if you want to forget, Ala-Tuuhonen is the far-right Kansallismielisten liittouma chairperson who hangs around with neo-Nazis and people of your party, like you. He even recently wrote that a culture war has begun in Finland.

Remember, who is Pekka Kataja? Of course, you do. He is the PS campaign manager whom Ala-Tuuhonen and Teemu Torssonen, a far-right politician that your party sacked 2019, brutally attacked.