Perussuomalaiset Archives - Page 98 of 161

Migrants are not a burden to Finland

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The letter to the editor below could be perfectly well applied to Finland. In Finland, migrants and minorities are tired of being called a burden by opportunistic politicians that want to gain with xenophobic sound bites voter attention.

Sensible Europeans know better and more of their voices are needed in the face of this hostile attack against migrants and minorities.

One good recent example of the near-constant attacks against the migrant and minority community is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party program on immigration policy. On top of this, the PS chairman, Timo Soini, wondered in an interview with YLE in English why so few migrants move to Finland.

Silence shouldn’t be our language when challenging all forms of intolerance.

Continue reading “Migrants are not a burden to Finland”

Politicians who fuel and support opportunistically segregation in Finland

Posted on March 5, 2015December 30, 2024 by Migrant Tales

Tanja Hartonen-Pulkka is a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* candidate in April’s parliamentary elections. Last year she was noticed by Migrant Tales for all the wrong reasons. Hartonen-Pulkka lives in Mäntyharju, a small town in Eastern Finland with a population of 6,200 people that has a handful of foreign residents. She claimed in fall that at the present rate, white Finns will become a minority in this country.

Hartonen-Pulkka’s anti-immigration rhetoric hasn’t ended even if she got her fingers burned in August. In a campaign poster she hands you the usual anti-immigration rhetoric that is hostile to migrants and minorities living in Finland:

We must limit immigration. We have to get a handle on social welfare immigration and the cost of immigration has to be lowered. We must first create jobs in order that Finns have work before we can think about increasing the number of skilled migrants [to Finland].

Continue reading “Politicians who fuel and support opportunistically segregation in Finland”

UPDATE (Feb. 27): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

Feb. 27

Rasistinen vai ei? Oikeusoppineet arvioivat perussuomalaisten maahanmuutto-ohjelma (YLE Kioski)

What’s wrong with this story? A story published by YLE Kioski asked a number of law professors if the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party program on immigration is racist. While the answers from five professors affirmed that the PS program was racist and/or unconstitutional, not a single non-Finnish professor was approached by YLE Kioski. One professor that could have given “a migrant view” is Jeremy Gould of Jyväskylä University. The fact that representatives of the majority culture, in this case white Finnish professors, are giving their expert opinions about what impacts migrants and minorities is nothing new. Too often migrants and minorities aren’t approached by the media in such cases. One of the journalists who did the story is Sean Ricks. The story mistakenly states that Veronika Honkasalo is an MP for the Left Alliance. She is a Helsinki city councilwoman who is running for parliament. Continue reading “UPDATE (Feb. 27): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism”

Sending Finland to a retirement home

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and anti-immigration politicians like MEP Jussi Halla-aho should be thankful to migrants and multicultural Finns. Where would these anti-immigration populists be today without their near-constant attacks against our ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse society?

Source: theinspirationroom.com.

While anti-immigration rhetoric has poisoned the air and made life difficult for some migrants, it has likewise awoken many to a social ill like intolerance. A good example of the latter is Migrant Tales as well as numerous other anti-racism blogs that have appeared in recent years.

Xenophobia and intolerance are extremely harmful and toxic social ills for any country. Finland is no exception. If few people have found their way to Finland in the past and made it their home, anti-immigration parties like the PS and the silence of other ones have made it an even less attractive destination for migrants.

It’s clear that we are paying a high price for not challenging intolerance and for promoting our own urban tales about ourselves and other groups.

What future awaits us if we don’t change course? Is it further graying of the population, rocketing health-care costs to serve an ever-growing aging population, lower tax revenues and productivity as well as greater anti-immigration/anti-cultural diversity sentiment?

Finland is a country that has faced great hardships in its history and overcome them.

None of them, however, are so perilous and far-reaching than the ones it faces today.

Intolerance is like a vampire that sucks the life out of a nation. It quenches its thirst by impoverishing and stagnating a country.

Don’t send Finland but the anti-immigration populist to a retirement home.

* The English name of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is officially the Finns Party. The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Amnesty International cites (again) Finland’s human rights violations against refugee, migrant and transgender rights

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Amnesty International criticized Finland in a 2014-15 country report on human rights violations for its treatment of asylum seekers, migrants, transgender people and conscientious objectors, according to YLE in English. It said that police inaction agains women and girls was another cause for concern.

Should we be surprised? Not really. Finland has had a poor human rights track record with asylum seekers, migrants and conscientious objectors.

It wasn’t too long ago when Finland returned Soviet citizens who asked for asylum to the former USSR.

After over 20 years of searching, Migrant Tales made contact with Aleksandr Shatravka in 2009 thanks to this blog.

One of the saddest cases that Amnesty International documented was that of Vyacheslav N. Cherapanov, who was forcibly returned in July 1980 to the USSR after he had allegedly been beaten by Finnish police in Ilomantsi. This was done after Finland had pledged to respect the human rights of asylum seekers after it hosted and signed the Helsinki Accords of 1975.

The human rights situation under Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen has deteriorated. Amnesty International had launched a petition against the imprisonment of asylum seekers who are children.

According to Amnesty International, the government of Finland promised in 2011 to forbid the detention of unaccompanied children and to develop alternatives to detention. The promise was written in the government’s program, but it has not been fulfilled. Alternatives to detention have not yet been developed and children are still detained.

Read full report here.

Writes Yle in English:

A new addition this year to the [Amnesty International] list of complaints concerning Finland was discrimination against transgender individuals. AI says that the law on obtaining legal gender recognition is too onerous, requiring lengthy medical studies, sterilisation or a mental disorder diagnosis, and proof of single status.

Female residents of Finland, meanwhile, are all too often subject to sexual violence, according to the report. It cites a 2014 survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, which indicates that nearly half of women in the country had experienced physical or sexual violence since the age of 15. However only one in 10 victims has contacted police, even in serious cases of violence.

Some Finns are still scratching their heads about the surge of intolerance in Finland and why an anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* became the country’s third-largest in parliament in 2011.

As long as Finland does little to nothing to improve the human rights of groups like asylum seekers, migrants, transgender people and women, it continues to fuel a climate of intolerance that has been with us for decades.

Reija Härkönen: Soinin sirkus ja Mestarin lista

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Reija Härkönen

Maahanmuuttajavastainen islamofoobikko, vaaliehdokas Jussi Halla-aho julkaisi vaalien 2011 alla listan ehdokkaista, jotka olisivat riittävästi ”aatteen” miehiä ja naisia ja joita sopisi äänestää siellä, missä häntä itseään ei, vaikka kuinka haluaisi, pääse äänestämään. Useat listatuista olivat äärikansallismielisen Suomen Sisu- järjestön ja/tai Hommaforumin jäseniä.

Nyt on aika tarkastella sitä, ketä tuolta listalta silloin pääsi läpi, miksi he ovat olleet Jussi Halla-ahon, ”Mestarin” listalla ja mitä he ovat kuluvan vaalikauden aikana tehneet Suomen ja sen asukkaiden hyväksi. Se kai kuitenkin on ollut tarkoitus?

Juho Eerola oli valituksi tullessaan Suomen Sisun jäsen, mutta erosi myöhemmin päästäkseen parempiin julkisiin asemiin puolueessa ja eduskuntaryhmässä. Toiminta ”maahanmuuttokriittisessä” ryhmässä on kuitenkin jatkunut ennallaan. Kun Suomen vastarintaliikkeen johtohahmo puukotti järjestysmiestä Jyväskylässä Äärioikeisto Suomessa –kirjan julkistustilaisuudessa, Juho Eerola piti väkivaltaa hyvänä mainoksena kirjalle ja antoi uusnatseille ohjeen: ”Älkää seuraavan kerran näyttäkö “patriooteilta”, kun pyritte tuollaiseen tilaisuuteen sisään. Älkää myöskään menkö ryhmässä, vaan muina miehinä muiden joukossa.” Jo v. 2011 vaaleihin valmistautuessaan Eerola tunnusti avoimesti ihailevansa fasismia ja Mussolinin Italian talousjärjestelmää.

James Hirvisaari aiheutti puolueelle jatkuvaa hallaa rasistisilla ulostuloillaan. Viimeinen pisara oli vihapuhementorin kutsuminen eduskuntaan natsitervehtimään. Hirvisaari erotettiin puolueesta. Yhteistyö ”Mestarin” joukkojen kanssa kuitenkin jatkuu. Maahanmuuttajavastainen liike ei toimi vain yhden puolueen sisällä. Helmikuun 19. pv, kun Hirvisaari vaalikampanjansa osana järjesti eduskunnan tiloissa äärioikeistolaisen esitelmätilaisuuden, siihen ottivat osaa myös kansanedustajat Juho Eerola ja Olli Immonen.

Olli Immonen oli myös jo valituksi tullessaan Suomen Sisun jäsen ja hänet on sittemmin valittu järjestön puheenjohtajaksi. Olli Immonen tuottaa järjestelmällisesti omaan blogiinsa, Uuden Suomen Puheenvuoroon ja Facebook-sivuilleen antijihadistista, muslimivastaista ja rasistista materiaalia. Kirjoittelu on laadultaan sellaista, että on vaikea uskoa yhdenkään varteenotettavan suomalaisen eduskuntapuolueen olevan sen lähteenä.

Maria Lohela oli yksi Jussi Halla-ahon laatiman ”Nuivan vaalimanifestin” allekirjoittajista ja siten siis jo alun perin yksi kantavista hahmoista perussuomalaisten äärioikeistolaistamisprosessissa. Lohela, kuten monet muutkin ”kriitikot”, suhtautuu nuivasti muihinkin vähemmistöihin. Kuvaava on hänen huolensa siitä, että muslimien kokoontumistilojen rakentaminen Turkuun toisi mukanaan ”toisten oikeuksia polkevaa toimintaa”, kun hänellä itsellään on ollut vaikeuksia hyväksyä homoseksuaalien yhtäläisiä oikeuksia lain edessä: ”Homoseksuaaleillakin on oikeus mennä naimisiin vastakkaisen sukupuolen kanssa, jos he niin haluaisivat. Kolmella ihmisellä ei kuitenkaan ole oikeutta mennä naimisiin keskenään, vaikka haluaisivat.”

Pentti Oinonen, vaaleilla valittu kansanedustaja, jättää vuodesta toiseen menemättä tasavallan presidentin järjestämään, Suomen itsenäisyyttä kunnioittavaan tilaisuuteen sillä perusteella, että muut Suomen kansalaiset, myös muut kansanedustajat, tulevat kutsutuiksi asemansa tai saavutuksiensa perusteella riippumatta iästä, etnisestä tai kansallisesta alkuperästä, uskonnosta tai sukupuolisesta suuntautumisesta. Oinonen saa perussuomalaisen sateenvarjon alla kaikessa rauhassa julistaa inhoansa homoseksuaaleja kohtaan myös eduskunnan puhujapöntöstä.

Jussi Halla-ahon uusin vaalikirjoitus oli maahanmuuttajaehdokkaita halveeraava ulvahdus, jossa hän luokittelee tummaihoiset ehdokkaat ö-luokan ehdokkaiksi ja lähinnä itsestään kiinnostuneiksi sirkushahmoiksi. Näin siis perussuomalaisten maahanmuuttopoliittisen vaaliohjelman laatija kertoo, mistä on kysymys: väärän väristen ihmisten pitämisestä yhteiskunnan alempana kastina, jota ei olisi pitänyt edes päästää maahan, saatikka osallistumaan päätöksentekoon.

”Mestari” Halla-aho on nyt julkaissut uuden listan henkilöistä, joiden hän haluaa nykyisten kansanedustajien ohella pääsevän toteuttamaan valheelliseksi, rasistiseksi ja perustuslain vastaiseksitodettua ohjelmaansa. Soinin siipien suojista.

Alkuperäisen blogikirjoituksen voi lukea tästä.

Tämä blogikirjoitus julkaistiin Migrant Talesissä luvalla.

The rise and fall of the Perussuomalaiset of Finland

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

As support for the Perussuomalaiset (PS)[1] wanes with parliamentary elections only a heartbeat away on April 19, we are seeing a very different party from four years ago. Back then, PS chairman Timo Soini was self-confident and campaigning confidently. He was the darling of the media, the new kid on the block, the underdog, the only credible anti-EU voice in the country romping opinion polls and sending political shock tremors.

Matters have changed radically from 2011. We no longer see a self-confident Soini but a party that has run out of populist arguments and is scrambling unsuccessfully to repeat its historic election victory. Moreover, Soini doesn’t look even youthful as before but his image is a cause for worry since he has aged prematurely and there are health issues as well.

Happy Flappy Soini is a popular game mocking the PS chairman. You can download the game (in Finnish) here.

The charismatic leader, who helped the PS rise from political obscurity to the third-biggest party in parliament in four years is now in retreat and on the defensive.

What happened?

An article in the New Statesman gives the following reason for the rise and fall of the PS:

In opposition, and rebranded as simply “the Finns”, the far-right revolution began to fade. The Finns soon found they outside of a coaliton, they were powerless. Meanwhile, they suffered a long string of very public controversies. In 2013, their MP James Hirvisaari was expelled for photographing of a friend posing in a Nazi salute outside [sic][2] Parliament, having previously been reprimanded for a series of Islamophobic and racist comments. Another high-ranking Finns Party MP, Jussi Halla-aho, has been investigated several times for inciting racial hatred.

Migrant Tales has always been critical of the PS and their motives. Their anti-immigration, homophobic and nativist nationalistic message is unsustainable politically.

PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen is one of many good examples of the party’s fall from political grace. Here’s an MP that has issues with alcohol and racism. Hakkarainen has even sent on his work phone pictures of his phallus, among other scandals.

It is incredible that in the age of the Internet, relatively cheap travel and globalization that some extremist groups are still hellbent on excluding others from being equal members of society. Behind all the rhetoric and political malarkey of the PS is its underlying message: Keep Finland white.

Despite Soini’s repeated claims, that his party doesn’t even flirt with racism (sic!), the best example of how it uses a nativist nationalistic message in inciting nationalist fervor, which in turn fuels racism, was his decision to allow MEP Jussi Halla-aho to draft the party’s program on immigration policy.

Soini claimed in 2009 that he’d sack any PS member if they got sentenced for inciting ethnic hatred. Halla-aho did but nothing happened to him. Soini instead defended his decision not to sack Halla-aho on BBC’s HARDTalk.

Another problem with the PS is that it has lost crediblity among voters because it is a volatile mixed bag of ideologies ranging from neo-Nazis and fascists to former communists. It hasn’t done anything in the opposition except whine.

Even if the PS will suffer a defeat in the April elections and even if there is a big possibility that it will eventually splinter and implode, the big question is what will emerge from the wreckage of the PS? Will we see in Finland openly far-right parties like the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party?

That is one of the fears that the demise of the PS raises.

[1] The English name of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is officially the Finns Party. The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

[2] Then PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was sentenced for ethnic agitation, took a picture of Seppo Lehto making a Nazi salute inside the parliament building.

PS candidate shows video of “lazy” migrant but does not know how many of them live in Finland

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Jari Ronkainen is a candidate from the town of Hollola near Lahti in the April parliamentary elections. Should it surprise us that he his a member of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party? In a campaign video he divides migrants in two groups: those that integrate and those that don’t. Migrant Tales got in touch with the candidate by phone.

Are you serious about the video?

“Yes I am because the aim is to talk about a topic that [politicians and policy makers] try to avoid,” said Ronkainen.

Apart from being a distasteful video because it portrays migrant groups in a racist and stereotypical manner, the PS candidate doesn’t have a clue when asked how many unemployed migrants there are in Finland.

“I don’t know [the figure] but there are a lot of Somalis that are unemployed,” he added.

Even if the video suggests that the “lazy migrant” got his problem sorted out by sending him back to where he came from in the Middle East, the migrants portrayed have a stereotypical resemblance of Mexicans. The insulting video even uses the word “manana,” which is spelled mañana and means tomorrow in Spanish.

Migrant Tales asked Ronkainen why is he portraying a so-called Arab as a probable Mexican.

“The video is supposed to portray only migrants,” he said.

Lazy person or lazy bum!! Watch the PS candidate’s video here.

So what does this say about a candidate who speaks out against “lazy migrants” but doesn’t have a clue how many migrants are unemployed never mind how he plans to hand out jobs to everyone in Finland?

“It doesn’t matter if migrant unemployment is today small or big in Finland, we have to make sure that these types of people don’t come to Finland,” he said. “I want to bring this to the attention [of the public] so it won’t be a problem in the future.”

It’s a mystery how Ronkainen plans to ensure us if elected how people at the border will be sorted as “hard-working” or “lazy” migrants.

Ronkainen said that those “lazy” migrants that live in Finland cannot be deported back to their home countries because they already live here.

Intolerance can surely distort a person’s world with the help of brute ignorance. In Ronkainen’s world, Mexicans can be from the Middle East with worms that can utter “manana,” or mañana, tomorrow in English. The medic, who is the PS candidate, gives medication to cure the “lazy” migrant. The medication can be taken as a suppository, or anally, according to the medic.

The more you watch this video the uglier its message becomes.

Timo Soini and the PS: “What goes around comes around”

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini has good acting skills and a poor memory. At a press conference Thursday he told us about the death threats he’s received. I know how he feels because I too have received such death threats possibly from people inspired by the PS’ populist and hateful ideology.

Even if I’ve lived in countries like Argentina and Colombia, I never got death threats. That happened to me for the first time in the early 1990s in Finland, when I was doing a big story for Apu magazine on the refugee center of Mikkeli.

There is a perfect quote that sits well with Soini and the PS in light of today’s press conference: “What goes around comes around,” which means that whether you do good or bad things to other people, the same will return to you.

For some white Finns the PS may be a good party but for some migrants and minorities in this country like Muslims it can be an extremely hateful and dangerous party.

Read full Iltalehti (in Finnish) story here.

While all types of threats should be condemned, Soini forgets that he has with the PS created a monster of his own making that has come to haunt him with his death threats.

How many migrants and visible minorities face racism and hostility on a daily basis in this country because of Soini’s cronies like MEP Jussi Halla-aho and the likes are exercising their “free speech” to disenfranchise them?

Soini has with the PS polarized Finland and encouraged many of his followers to be proud bigots.

All the hate, bigotry and racism that parties like the PS are spreading goes and comes around.

Bashy Quraishy: Terrorism in Denmark – is it the result of war mongering policies?

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: My Muslim friend in Denmark, Bashy Quaraishy, courageously continues to write on Facebook about the attacks that took place in Denmark. He not only condemns the terrorist acts that left two dead and five wounded, but the Danish People’s Party (DPP), which has turned the country into an intolerable place for Muslims and migrants.

The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* are a close ideological ally of the DPP. If allowed to, they would become as radical and the same political thugs as their Danish counterparts.

Wrote Migrant Tales in a recent post:

Violence can, however, come in many forms: bombs and killing people in cold blood. You can also use “a silencer” to hide the bombs and bullets and target whole groups in subtler and more effective ways like social exclusion, racism and bigotry.

Both are unacceptable and put at risk our own values.

Both the DPP and the PS are those “silencers.”

_______________

Bashy Quraishy

Denmark is an open, democratic, safe and functioning society; all praise worthy and appreciable qualities but over the period of 2 decades, it has also become a very confrontational, warmongering and hateful place to be, especially for Muslims communities.

Many Danes do not know or do not care to know that our beautiful Denmark is undisputedly that European country whose parliament has the strongest anti-Islam and xenophobic right-wing Danish People’s Party. In the next election in Sept 2015, it is projected to be the country’s largest party. Its views on Islam, ethnic minorities and foreign aid as well as open borders are scary to say the least. Sadly, this party’s views are more or less shared – but not in the same ferocious manner – by a majority of parliamentary parties, including the Social Democrats.

And now these deadly attacks that killed two and injured 5 innocent people has opened the flood gates of hateful statements that put the whole question of integration, majority/minorities relations, unlimited freedom of speech to demonize Islam and Muslims and the need to monitor minorities in a whole new perspective.

After this weekend’s assassinations, all Danish Muslims would be considered guilty until they it is proven otherwise.

Unfortunately this carnage has given unlimited ammunition to those rightwing and Islamophobic movements that are already active to paint Islam and Muslims as inherently violent, undemocratic and enemies of Freedom of Speech. Many politicians in Denmark were quick to call this heinous act of a lone young gunman as a direct attack on democracy, absolute freedom of speech and “OUR” way of living.

While I understand the frustration, anger and angst in the society very well but what happened on Saturday, the 13th Feb 2015 did not come out of blue. It is the result of years of insults, misinformation and political and media denomination of ethnic minorities, especially Muslim communities.

We should be thankful that in response to all that shit which has been thrown at minorities, they are still very peaceful and docile.
Violence begets violence and as long as Denmark keeps acting like a war lord in other countries, the situation will not get better but worst.

We Danes, especially the civil society has to stand up against this opportunistic political hard line and misuse of freedom of expression. We need to bring back that loving Denmark, I fell in love in 1969 when I came here as a tourist.