Helsinki City Councillor Abdirahim Husu Hussein, who is now giving racists and parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* a taste of their own medicine proves a point: There is too much racism in Finland, and too little is done to counter it.
Disagree? How many hate speech, hate crime, and cases involving racism ever reach the courts? How long does it take to reach the courts? How many get convictions?
After receiving countless racist insults and recently a letter with a death threat and a piece of rope tied as a noose, the insults, death threats, and racist harassment against Hussein continue.
Hussein’s case is a sad reminder that even if we have good laws against racism and hate speech, too little is done to enforce them.
Racism and hate are like a rabid dog that some politicians walk to impress and lure their voters. They forget, however, that that dog knows no master and can bite back hard, very hard.
* The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. 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.