Tag: Perussuomalaiset

The Perussuomalaiset of Finland try to play down New Zealand atrocities but fail

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In Finland, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is an extremist far-right party that fear-mongers about Muslims and migrants. For many PS politicians, the Oulu sexual abuse cases came as an election lifesaver until Friday, when an Australian white supremacist murdered in cold blood 49 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand. 

The future for the PS looks bleak. Different stories about the party speculate that some 200,000 voters are going to ditch the PS in the April 14 parliamentary elections.

From the reactions of some PS members to the atrocities in New Zealand, show a sense of dread.

What do extremists do when a murderous killing happens by people who are ideologically in the same ballpark? They find excuses to justify what happened, play it down or change the story completely.

Here is a PS Youth leader of Lapland who condones what happened.

 

What did Johannes Sipola say in the tweet?

“The New Zealand case show ever-convincingly that multicultural society does not work. When other people [of other backgrounds] rape and kill enough [people], it is only a question of time when there will be a reaction from the opposite side. First and foremost, everyone defends their own.”

Continue reading “The Perussuomalaiset of Finland try to play down New Zealand atrocities but fail”

The wrong question by Helsingin Sanomat that feeds anti-immigration sentiment and undermines human rights

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Helsingin Sanomat’s election or vote compass questions say a lot about how the Finnish media approaches and writes about asylum and migration issues. Martin Scheinin, international law and human rights professor at the European Institute University, raises an important point about how the newspaper approaches asylum policy. 

Scheiin tweets: “Hesari [Helsingin Sanomat] feeds anti-immigration sentiment that ignores Finland’s human rights’ obligation by juxtaposing[political] parties wrongly [on topics like] asylum. [The proper] question one should ask is whether Finland should comply whole-heartedly with its human rights obligations.”

Read the original tweet here.

While the Helsingin Sanomat election compass asks potential voters two questions about migration policy, an article by it publishes the following questions answered by the different parties. One of these is should Finland tighten asylum policy.

Most of the parties (National Coalition Party, Center Party, Blue Reform, Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, Christian Democrats, Seitsemän tähden liike) said they would tighten asylum policy. The Social Democrats and Liike nyt stated that asylum policy should remain unchanged while only the Greens, Leftwing Alliance and the Swedish People’s Party were in favor of loosening asylum policy.

The view that Helsingin Sanomat takes about asylum policy sheds light why human rights are on the defensive these days. It also shows why most mainstream parties are eagerly parroting the PS’ Islamophobic and anti-immigration rhetoric.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, 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 factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way.

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 after that the acronym PS.

 

 

 

Good riddance to Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

…a thousand people in the street singing songs and carrying signs singing mostly say, hooray for our side. 

Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth (1967)

The downfall of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government on International Women’s Day Friday was not only good news for social equality in Finland but a ray of hope for the country’s most vulnerable groups like single mothers, women, the unemployed, migrants, minorities and others. It is the end to right-wing party politics and to its health reform bid, which ended in failure. 

During his government, the tightening of immigration and asylum policy affected not only refugees but the entire migrant community. Sipilä’s government was the most xenophobic that Finland has seen in a long time.

Read the full story in Helsinki Times here.

It’s not rocket science to figure out that their problem, although many, was attributable to a far-right partner, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* until 2017 and then to Blue Reform.

Amnesty International writes in its 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 report:  “Support services for women who experienced domestic violence remained inadequate. Legislation on legal gender recognition continued to violate the rights of transgender people. Draft constitutional changes limiting the right to privacy were proposed.”

Continue reading “Good riddance to Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government!”

Timo Soini to retire from politics

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Foreign Minister Timo Soini, 56, who inspired Islamophobes, racists and conservative nationalists to have a political voice and platform to lash out at migrants and minorities, announced that he will not seek a new term in parliament, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Soini, who calls himself a devout Catholic, will be remembered as a conservative populist politician who led the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* to national prominence by capitalizing on populist anti-immigration sentiment. 

Soini, who hails from Rauma, led the PS as chairman for twenty years (1997-2017), served as MP during 2001-09 and 2011-2019, EuroMP 2009-2011, Espoo city councillor 2001-2009, minister for European affairs (2015-2017), and foreign minister (2015-2019).

Despite Soini’s long list of political merits, some see him as an anti-immigration populist and nationalist who objected women’s and gay rights and anti-abortionist. His fondness for far-right politicians like Morten Messerschmidt of the Danish People’s Party, which the PS has close ideological ties, have not gone unnoticed.

Soini has shown support against EU plans to put Poland under greater scrutiny of nationalist conservative Polish Law and Justice party and shown support as foreign minister for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He also took part in anti-abortion marches and has participated in the prayer breakfast sessions organized by the US Congress and hosted by the US President Donald Trump.

Soini’s political history is a rise-and-fall tale when he rose to prominence after the 2011 parliamentary elections but came down in flames after his chief rival, Jussi Halla-aho, took over the helm of the PS in June 2017.

It is sweet irony that Soini, who used Islamophobes and far-right voices to opportunistically rise to power, became his downfall.

One of the most important signals to emerge from the end of Soini’s political era is that “moderate populism” has given way to “extremist populism.” After the 2011 parliamentary election, Soini and the PS’ anti-immigration wing debated the main reason for the party’s good showing in the election. Soini claimed it was anti-EU sentiment while politicians like Halla-aho said it was anti-immigration.

Timo Soini gets a grilling on BBC Hardtalk.

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Finland’s integration program discriminates and offers fairy tale views of our society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I never have or want to “integrate.” I have, however, learned how to survive in Finland. 

If there is one matter that the sexual assault cases of Oulu have exposed in the raw is a false expectation about migrants. If we listen to the media, police and politicians, migrants cannot commit crimes because Finns rarely do if ever break the law.  White Finns are model humans, asylum seekers are not. 

This erroneous expectation becomes clear when the Oulu police and the media announce a new sexual abuse case by “a person of foreign origin,” which is code for Muslim, asylum seeker, and non-EU citizen.

Unfortunately, more of these types of crimes will come to light because men commit such crimes constantly.

Source: Goodreads. 

Blaming asylum seekers and migrants for not “integrating” enough reveals our false expectations and ignorance of cultural diversity.

Take effective steps to do away with racism and discrimination if you are serious about integrating newcomers.

I have worked in helping new migrants to get an understanding of Finnish society and their rightful places in it.

If a student states that there is no equality in Finland, I agree with him. All this talk about how we respect equality in Finland is a lie. The correct question you must ask is who has the right to demand equality in Finland.

Source: Goodreads. 

But what can you expect with the rise of far-right parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in this decade and the present government that wants to label and shame Muslims and other groups? What can you expect from a country where mainstream parties like the National Coalition Party and Social Democrats lack the leadership to speak out against racism but instead succumb to it?

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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.

Posted on by Migrant Tales

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 apply to everyone and not to one specific group.

As we all know, the ban is due to the sexual assault cases where some 16 “persons of migrant background” – code for asylum seeker, Muslim, non-EU nationals – are suspects.

We got in touch with the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman about this and have yet to get a call back from them.

The same goes for the City of Oulu’s Director of Education and Culture Mika Penttilä. He has not called back after repeated phone calls.

Section 6 of the Constitution states the following:  “Everyone is equal before the law. No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.”

How should we interpret Section 6 of the Constitution? If there is a ban, like the one in Oulu, it must apply to everyone.

The ban, which is an overreaction and I believe illegal, is making Oulu trip over itself due to a lack of political leadership and the parliamentary elections in April.

An elementary school in Oulu was the target of recent attacks on social media due to a false rumor that asylum seekers had visited the school. Kello School principal, Timo Soini, said that the attacks amounted to threats and insults, according to Yle.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

“Two women and a man visited [the school] last week who were of multicultural origin and Finnish citizens,” said Soini. “They have lived in Finland all their lives and came to give talks to middle school students about discrimination and racism.”

Continue reading “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.”

WARNING: RACIST CONTENT – Halla-aho announces that anti-immigration will be the PS’ main campaign theme

Posted on by Migrant Tales

With parliamentary elections a heartbeat away on April 14, the populist far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party announced that anti-immigration will be their main campaign theme. Are we surprised? Not in the bit. 

PS Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho was quoted as saying in Yle that at the present rate, Finland’s immigration policy will destroy present levels of social welfare, undermine good salaries, good schools, gender equality among other problems.

“We want to make it tougher for people to move here,” he said. “We want to raise the requirements to get Finnish citizenship.”

See the short interview here.

Continue reading “WARNING: RACIST CONTENT – Halla-aho announces that anti-immigration will be the PS’ main campaign theme”

Ku Klux Klan in the US, Perussuomalaiset in Finland

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The editorial below by the Alabama-based Democrat-Reporter, calling on the Ku Klux Klan “to ride again” and lynch Democrats, was not published in the last century but in 2019. This editorial is a good example that the United States is a racist country and has done too little to eradicate this social ill. 

It is the same story in Europe, which explains why populist far-right parties are on the rise and gaining support.

The United States had a Civil Rights Movement (1955-68) and Europe World War 2 (1939-45). In both cases, there was a lack of resolve to do away with racism and its poison. Governments and school boards searched instead for the status quo. We are paying today a high price for our mistake.

This is understandable because those who held power benefited from the privileges that racism bestows on them.

Source: Montgomery Advertiser.

Do we have similar examples in Europe and Finland?

European examples of the latter would be Marine Le Pen of France, Holland’s Gert Wilders, Viktor Orbán and many others. In Finland, two candidates that come to mind are Jussi Halla-aho and Laura Huhtsaari of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.

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PS’ Jussi Halla-aho on TV offerng simplistic views on migration and Finnish identity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

iety Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho was a guest on Yle’s Ykkösaamu. Convicted for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion in 2012, the PS chairperson gave his usual simplistic views on immigration and Finnish identity.

One of these was when the reporter asked him about the party’s youth wing and their Finnish white supremacist ethnonationalistic views on who is a Finn.

Halla-aho didn’t condemn this view but blamed it instead on linguistics.

“The question who is a Finn is interesting [question],” he explained. “The problem is that in Finnish we don’t have a term that classifies who is an ethnic Finn and a Finnish citizen.”

And then adds: “If I would for some reason go to Somalia and become a Somali citizen would that make me a Somali?”

Possibly, Halla-aho, you could be a “Somali Finn” or whatever you would want to call yourself. I doubt that minorities are aiming to be white like you but seek social justice and recognition. They are tired of being labelled by Finnish white supremacists and society as eternal “people of foreign origin.”

Watch the full interview (in Finnish) here.

Halla-aho and his party have inflicted harm to migrants and minorities. Their racist rhetoric has no interest in making such people equal members of society. Their main aim is to label and exclude certain groups and attack groups like the Somalis.

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