Disquieting questions emerge in light of the Jussi Halla-aho scandal: Is pressure on the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP to resign as chairman of the administration committee due to his dismissive reaction to the Supreme Court sentence or because of what he wrote about Muslims and Somalis, which got him in trouble in the first place?
When the PS won the April 2011 elections, it was well-known by many that the PS was an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party. The question, however, at the time was how many politicians were ready to admit the latter about the PS.
Another important fact that Finland’s political establishment knew last year was that there were a few problem cases in the PS like Halla-aho, who was charged in 2009 by a lower court for defaming a religion.
In light of these facts, why was Halla-aho approved unanimously to chair the administration committee, which, among other matters, is in charge of immigration policy?
Would political parties be demanding the MP’s head today if he’d remained quiet and taken the Supreme Court decision with a drop of humility?
Legal scholars have reacted to Halla-aho’s provocative statements after the Supreme Court decision, who considered the ruling as “a personal interpretation by a few people.”
Halla-aho’s and the PS’ view of our judicial system is odd coming from a party that claims immigrants don’t follow and respect our laws.
Writes Husein Muhammed on Migrant Tales: “Now I grasp what the Perussuomalaiset actually mean when they demand that immigrants should respect the country’s laws. They don’t themselves respect Finnish laws/judicial system.”
If Halla-aho’s arrogant stand has surprised many, PS chairman Timo Soini’s decision to not do anything hasn’t helped matters either.
Soini said in 2009 that any person would get sacked from the party if that person were charged for a racist crime.
Soini has been forced to eat his words on a number of occasions. With a poker face, he claimed right after last year’s election that there wasn’t one racist among the PS and that if Halla-aho got criminally charged he’d get the boot from the party.
Halla-aho plans to take up the matter before the European Court of Human Rights.
If there is anything positive about the scandal, it may be that political parties in Finland are starting to take a social issue like racism more seriously.
Finland’s parliament may be making history tomorrow if the PS does not force Halla-aho to resign. Parliament may decide Wednesday to dissolve the administration committee and appoint new members, which in turn would choose a new chairman.
Tämä skandaali tulee laittamaan ääri-rasistit huonoon valoon vain ainoastaan. Kaikki muu rasismi elää ihan hyvin ilman näitä ääri-rasisteja.
Meidän pitäisi olla kiitollisia siitä että ääri-rasistimme ovat näin tyhmiä. Suomella ei ole vielä kunnon David Dukea.
Halla-ahon pitäisi nyt vain myöntää tappionsa ja perääntyä vielä kun ovi on auki. Kohta hänet heitetään pois. Kaikesta intelektuali järjestään huolimatta, hän ei ole hirveen hyvä politiitikko.
“Soini said in 2009 that any person would get sacked from the party if that person were charged for a racist crime.”
Funny thing, racism isnt even mentioned in the KKO’s decision, nor racism is a crime in Finland.
I think they would demand Halla-aho to resign even if he had backed down on the unjust decision. PS isnt an anti-immigration party, they demand a change on the immigration policy.
Jssk
Jssk, so that you avoid landing in court yourself, let me point out that distributing racist material is banned specifically because of the link to racist phenomena, the hostility it creates and the violation of the rights of others.
Only if it incites against an ethnic group. You can freely distribute racial studies, which are considered racist. And theres no such charge as “distrubuting racist material”.
Jssk
ABSOLUTELY incorrect.
This is taken straight from rikoslaki (penal code)
You’ll notice that ‘incitement’ is not mentioned. The key phrase in regard to your above denial is:
“Joka asettaa yleisön saataville tai muutoin yleisön keskuuteen levittää tai pitää yleisön saatavilla tiedon, mielipiteen tai muun viestin…”.
That is, in English, the key phrases being:
“Who makes available to the public or otherwise, among the public, distributed or be available to the public of information, opinion, or any other message which is threatening, slandering or insulting a group of race, color, descent, national or ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation or disability,…
Do your homework, muppet!
See also:
And in English, approximately:
Note, the broad term ‘persecute’, which can be used to protect members of the public from various forms of harassment and ill-treatment
No surprise that you haven’t even bothered to look up the relevant Finnish laws in question! Most of you fascists/bigots are notoriously intellectually lazy!
So which part of this criminalizes the distribution of for example racial studies or ‘racist material’ that isnt threatening, slandering or insulting a group of race, color, descent, national or ethnic origin etc?
Isnt this what you “tolerant people” are practically doing (against immigration critics)? This law is very ambiguous, some people just seem to be more equal than others.
Thank you for telling me my political orientation, Mr. tolerance. I would have never guessed
Jssk
That is a contradiction in terms – if it is racist material, it cannot at the same time be non-insulting or non-threatening. You said originally that ‘distributing racist material’ was not banned. You fudged that outright denial in the next comment in part by saying racial studies that were racist are not banned, but that’s pretty vague and again contradictory: I guess you to IQ testing and other such dubious materials that seek to show disparities between races.
Of course, if you believe the argument that justifies racism, that races are superior to each other in various ways, then of course I understand that you see the material as being merely ‘factual’ and not intending to be threatening or insulting. But what you intend is irrelevant – the point is that society has rejected the racist’s hypothesis, for good reason, and moreover made it illegal to further promote that hypothesis with material that purports to support it. You might not like it, but the reasons for society opposing this hypothesis are there for all to see: genocide, slavery, the Final Solution, Apartheid, and to an extent, colonialism. It’s a sad list of humanity’s recent heinous failings and it makes complete sense that society has tried to turn its back on a shameful past and the false ideologies that fed into that past.
It is one argument to say that extremists are being persecuted for their views, and that because they hold to a ‘political identity’, that that identity affords them the right to abuse other identities. That does not wash in today’s world. You cannot use some rights to usurp other rights. Indeed, in the Declaration of Human Rights, a specific clause makes exactly this point, that free speech cannot be used as a cover to undermine the Declaration.
One can clearly see a scenario though where Right Wingers and members of, e.g. Suomen Sisu, could be rounded up and imprisoned, without trial, merely for ‘criticizing government immigration policy’, and that this would constitute the ‘persecution’ you refer to. However, society has rejected fascism and racism as ideologies, and so groups that hold those ideologies or attempt to introduce them through the back door are likely to suffer severe criticism and rebuke. I don’t think that in itself constitutes persecution though, although I can understand that if you hold those views, it could seem so.
Actually, Jssk, I think you have little grasp of what fascism is or was, and therefore I very much doubt that you can make the necessary connections between fascism and the views you have openly expressed here in the comments on this blog. I’m not surprised. I have studied and been around people who have been brain-washed by various extreme ideologies for several decades and I’m more than used to the constant process of filtering criticism so that it has little effect on one’s core beliefs.
It is a shame perhaps that the story of the war against Nazism is presented primarily as a military success, and that the story of the rise of Nazism is presented as the enforcement and enslavement of a people at the hands of a ruthless SS and political regime. What would have perhaps been more useful for the sake of history would have been a clear understanding of how ordinary Germans were sold into believing the Nazi ideology and the anti-Semiticism that came with it. Then perhaps today it would have made it harder for the Far Right to make a comeback, this time with a new scapegoat! Islam! No doubt that religion and fear of religion were always very powerful drivers in persuading people to give up their hard fought freedoms in exchange for political authoritarianism and ultimately, totalitarianism.
Funny thing is, this is actually true. Laws are written and then judges will do the interpretation. There are lots of laws that are written in (bad) way so that it leaves room for interpretation.
As this case shows the lower degree courts had interpreted it differently and supreme court interpreted it another way. So no matter how people try to twist it, this judgement was an interpretation of few people.
That’s what everyone should remember, those judges are also people, just like rest of us. They are not supreme human beings with somehow superior skills. They are just appointed to that position and their job is to do the interpretation.
tp1
This is at best a half-truth. While all laws must be interpreted, the nature of the Supreme Court interpretation is that it is subject to very rigorous analysis by the countries most experienced legal minds.
Even general legislation involves a process of interpretation that is constantly being refined and defined through legal precedent, such that it becomes less and less obscure as to the ‘correct’ interpretation should be when a violation appears before the courts.
Of course, it happens that less experienced justices will make erroneous interpretations, and the appeal process and the Supreme Court are there to apply the best experience. Not a perfect system, but then again not simply a matter of ‘one person’s interpretation against another’s either.
Not supreme beings, but almost certainly with superior skills in matters of law and interpretation of legislation. The significance of this is that members of the public cannot themselves interpret the law in ways that seem fit to them, and thereby use this as a defence against prosecution. As unbelievable as it is, Allah-oho, an appointee of Parliament, actually seems to have this exact view of the laws in question.
Then, how can a normal member of public know what is actually forbidden by law if they can’t interpret it? I don’t like the idea that person X can’t know if something is illegal or not and then he is judged by the law that he couldn’t even have any idea about?
In my opinions laws should be written so clearly that there is no room for interpretation. And in case of unclear interpretations, they should always be interpreted in favor of the accused.
tp1
I have some sympathy over this. And certainly in the modern day, many governments are applying legislation to internet communications in a way that appears very arbitrary – for example, the twitter joke trial, where obvious humour has led to a great confusion between the ‘message’ and the ‘content’, where a threat in the ‘content’ has led to an automatic assumption of threat also in the message. The implications of the current interpretation of the Communciations Act in this case means applying a law that was never intended to be used on the internet in a new way. How are people supposed to know?
The issue there though is that it is for Parliament to decide what is acceptable and unacceptable within society, and it is not the job of prosecutors to ‘invent’ crimes. However, Parliament has been slow, especially in comparison to the speed of development of the internet.
In this Halla-oho case though, I would say these issues are not present. The issue of ethnic agitation has been on the books for some time and was discussed by Parliament. Not only that, but Allah-oho directed his offensive blog post exactly at the public prosecutor, knowing full well what the current legislation was. You cannot protest at perceived double standards by breaking the law and then crying that you get prosecuted and the other person didn’t. JD has already commented on this at length on this blog, so I won’t repeat the arguments, just do a search.
As for writing laws so clearly that there is no room for interpretation, then I suggest you enter the Parliament or political parties and offer your very rare talents. Coming up with legislation ideas is the easy part – writing legislation is an altogether different kind of skill, and one that has failed even with very good and reforming governments.
Always interpreting in favour of the accused is a stupid idea. The rights of the victim should be paramount. You cannot favour ‘ignorance’ in application of the law. It is our duty as citizens to know or find out what is legal and illegal. If you want to take risks in the grey zone, go ahead. But at least appreciate that in this case, these laws are designed from the point of view of a modern society that protects individuals from ill-treatment, persecution, slander, and threat. These are good principles upon which to enact legislation.
I never figured you for a Daily Mail reader, Mark 🙂 🙂
The principle of in dubio pro reo in criminal law is normally glossed in English as “guilt proven beyond reasonable doubt”. Indeed, I think that this is a strictly analytic consequence of the principle of “presumed innocent until proven guilty”.
Ignorantia juris non excusat is a related, more complex, and less absolute principle.
I agree with you, atleast in cases where there is a victim. But i this Halla-ahos case there was no victim for the crime, in these cases the interpretation should be done in favor or accused.
tp1
I disagree, I think there are victims in this crime, namely Muslims and Somalis.
So what is the harm cause for individual muslim here? You can’t say that one is a victim just because he belongs to a group that someone has said something negative about.
I used to earn 10 pence a day from my grandfather for going to the shop to get his Daily Mail. On that basis, you would think that I was well conditioned to like the paper.
Personally, I think it’s the most vile piece of political and moral corruption sitting on the newsstands, and is far more threatening to the morals of the country than anything on the top shelf. 🙂 Okay, exaggerating a bit! 😉
I see what you mean about the ‘in favour of the accused’ as being ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. I hadn’t made that connection. I guess that wasn’t my interpetation of what tp1 meant by it. I was thinking that it referred to his previous argument that the law is too obscure and so therefore ‘ignorance is a defence’. Thanks for the clarifications.
tp1
Down playing the significance of slander or defamation does not do you credit. These are offences which can have a greatly detrimental effect on well-being, health and circumstances, and in the long-run, also feed into the more concrete forms of racism and abuse that you would acknowledge must be injuries, such as assault or denying someone a job for racist reasons.
Defamation boils down to just words, but words can do cause injury, in many many ways.
Disquieting questions emerge in light of the Jussi Halla-aho scandal: Is pressure on the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP to resign as chairman of the administration committee due to his dismissive reaction to the Supreme Court sentence or because of what he wrote about Muslims and Somalis, which got him in trouble in the first place?
I do not like this guy Jussi Halla-aho but I think this case is ridiculing thw Finnish legal system.
Incitement of ethnic group was not a crime in the lower courts but in the higher courts the prosecutor asked for a jail sentence (probation). Probably some sort of corruption or similar
mmimimi
We have discussed this elsewhere on Migrant Tales already. The specific offences of the convicted racist criminal Jusuf Al-oho-alla are classified in the Finnish Penal Code under crimes against humanity (Chapter 11) and crimes against public order (Chapter 17). These offences carry particular weight when considering whether an individual is worthy of a position of public trust. The contemptuous manner in which the offender responded to the outcome of a process whereby a duly constituted court of law applied duly enacted statutory provisions clearly constituted conduct unbecoming for a person appointed to serve in a fiduciary position within a national legislature.
We have an appeal system so that higher instances can review the legality of judgements made by lower instances and correct them if necessary. In an important sense the judgements of lower instances no longer exist when they have been quashed by a superior court. This is because those judgements of lower instances are merely provisional. They do not become legally final until the appeal period has expired or until any appeal has been completed. It is perfectly natural and normal for such appeals to quash or modify a provisional judgement before it becomes legally final. The judgement of the Court of Appeal will normally become legally final and enforceable in cases where the parties may only seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
My understanding is that the prosecution claims remained the same in all instances. The offences of the convicted racist criminal Alla-hoho carry statutory penalties of a fine or up to six months’ imprisonment for desecration and a fine or up to two years’ imprisonment for ethnic agitation. As the prosecutor did not appeal against the sentence of the Court of Appeal for desecration, the claims of the prosecutor had to be adjusted at the Supreme Court. This was necessary because the two offences were tried together and the court had to consider a combined sanction.
The mere fact that an appeal court modifies the assessment of an inferior court does not show that the appeal court was biased. If you have an objection to the reasoning of the Supreme Court in judgement KKO:2012:58, then we are free to discuss it. The paragraphs of the judgement proper are numbered from 1 to 45.
My grudge against the legal system is different, a drunk driver bumped into my car and because he was freed in court I am eternally avenging. He came from the right, that is why he was freed. I disagreed with the court’s decision and asked to remove all people involved taking decisions.
The last amendment to the incitement of ethnic group and any incitements was made in 1995. Käräjä-oikeus took the stance that a violation of the freedom of speech is to be classified with murder or other form of assasination, the crime does not get old. The prosecutor let examine all documented sayings of Halla-aho. Should everybody’s sayings in the past 15 years be srcutinized and prosecuted?
I share the confusion with the käräjä- ja hovi-oikeus. Though, I expect them to be more professional than me but it doesn’t seems like that. Within this mess I expected Anna-Maija Henriksson to communicate the decision of the supreme court in a comprehensive way to all people living in Finland. But I guess this was also too much asked of these incompetent people.
The legal system is and still will be a ring of establishments without credibility. And respect. I want them all removed as I did earler.
mmimimi
At least you admit that this is a grudge, and as such it is wholly irrational. You cannot generalise from one case like this, and the effect of doing so is to cloud your own judgement of other cases as well. One of the most crucial principles of jurisprudence is that each case must be evaluated individually on its own merits. Another very important principle is that the courts must provide reasoned justifications for their judgements in those individual cases.
On the other hand, I accept that it is often difficult to appreciate why the law in Finland takes certain forms and why its administration can seem counterintuitive. You provide a very clear example of this in your misunderstanding of statute barring, as discussed below.
I’m not sure what you are getting at here. Section 10 of chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code was last revised in 2011. The preceding statutory provision originally dated from 1995 and, as I recall, was moved to its present position in 2008. Perhaps you meant the provision that was applied in this recent case.
The statute of limitations for an offence is normally tied to the maximum penalty prescribed for the offence. The maximum penalty for ethnic agitation is imprisonment for two years, from which it follows that the right to prosecute the offence expires 10 years after the date when the offence ceased (point 2 of subsection 1 of section 1 of chapter 8 of the Penal Code). When an offence involves maintaining an unlawful state of affairs the right to prosecute ends when the prescribed period has elapsed, reckoned from the date when the unlawful state of affairs ended (subsection 2 of section 2 of chapter 8 of the Penal Code).
When committed in the form of published written materials (or otherwise recorded communications), the offence of ethnic agitation is one that involves maintaining an unlawful state of affairs. This is most obviously the case with online blog publications, as the blog author can normally be assumed capable of taking down the offending materials at any time. Matters are more complex with printed publications, but criminal liability must attach to the extent that the author retains copyright and may forbid reprinting.
While the convicted racist criminal Ala-hohla continues to control the publicly accessible archives of his Holy Scripta, it is clear that ALL of these writings are subject to prosecution for ethnic agitation for a period of ten years counted from the date that they cease to be publicly accessible.
The specific offending materials in question were originally published in 2008, and they remained publicly accessible on a service controlled by the criminal in question throughout the proceedings in all instances.
You can’t really trust the KKO nowadays to be unbiased. There is clearly an agenda which is followed there and that has nothing to do with justice.
That was finally proven when KKO ruled that mutilating a defenseless person permanently with a knife was not a crime.
tp1
As you are obviously not a Member of Parliament with fiduciary obligations in relation to law and order in Finland, I suppose there are no consequences for you in expressing that opinion.
Otherwise, you are evidently referring in highly charged language to the judgement of the Supreme Court in case no. KKO:2008:93, which concerned circumcision of a boy aged 4 years and 6 months on religious and cultural grounds. This subject is off-topic for this thread, but again if you wish to suggest that the Supreme Court was somehow biased, then I suggest that you read the justifications set out by the court in the numbered paragraphs 1-29 and show us exactly where that bias entered into its reasoning.
In light of the fact that the judgement of the Supreme Court in this case was based on leave to appeal (wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to deny leave to appeal if the outcome was settled in advance?) and that it upheld the judgements of both the District Court and the Court of Appeal, you might also consider the strength of the argument that a difference between the findings of various legal instances constitutes evidence of bias. Would you say that these lower instances were also biased? How about the prosecutorial authority that decided to proceed with the case? We have heard a great deal about how prosecution of the convicted racist criminal Al-al-höpöhöpö was malicious and politically motivated. Why do you not say the same thing about prosecution in this case concerning circumcision?
I suspect that when the Hompanzees complain about bias, what they really mean is that the courts and other institutions of the justice system do not share their prejudices.
Who would I trust more? A Supreme Court judge, or a Far Right campaigner looking to vilify Muslims and immigrants?
By this criteria, no country in the world applies justice, because not a single country in the world has made male circumcision illegal.
It’s funny how much you will bend your understanding to create a situation where Allah-oho has been the victim.
Why are you an apologist for extremism, tp1? Are you an extremist? Would you know if you were one?
Doing bodily harm IS ILLEGAL in Finland, but still judges rule otherwise in case of circumcision. That is corruption.
Why is mutilation suddenly not mutilation just because it’s called circumcision?
There is a clear difference: a) Halla-aho didn’t cause harm to anybody vs b) the boy was permanently harmed by cutting away piece of his body.
tp1
Police officers standardly carry firearms in Finland and nearly all of the male population has a standing Constitutional and legal obligation to learn how to kill. Many forms of work with high accidental fatality rates are not banned in Finland and the entire nation is fanatical about a sport in which grown men regularly get pumped up on testosterone and then try to beat the crap out of one another as a means of settling disputes over how a small round piece of black rubber may be pushed around on an ice rink using a stick that is singularly unsuited to the purpose. Indeed in other circles a certain Robert Gabriel Helenius is one of a select band of Finnish males who are specifically praised and rewarded for their ability to cause bodily harm to others.
The Supreme Court set out the reasons for its judgement in the decision referenced above. You are free to read it and explain your objections, but simply calling them corrupt because you disagree with their understanding of the law makes you no better than the habitual criminals who do likewise. You can equally disagree with the tax officials who calculate your assessment or with the vehicle inspector who declares your car unroadworthy, but without a reasoned argument you are simply micturating into the breeze.
It speaks volumes about you that you consider that the convicted racist criminal Jusuf Äla-höhla caused no harm in committing a crime against humanity and a crime against public order. This is the logic of the Nuremberg defendants who argued that they caused no harm because they never actually handled the Zyklon B canisters.
By this criteria, no country in the world applies justice, because not a single country in the world has made male circumcision illegal.
Germany is illegal. Frankly I would not like to see the children I know circumcisized. Would you?
mmimimi
I think you must be referring to the highly controversial judgement of a court in Cologne announced yesterday, but this quite clearly does not establish law for the entire Federal Republic and it’s a racing certainty that even locally this will be challenged.
The character of that challenge remains to be seen, as it appears that the defendant in the Cologne case was not actually convicted, and so there seems to be no specific appeal interest that could serve as a handle for bringing this case before the German Constitutional Court. Perhaps some other commenter with a better grasp of German law can enlighten us on these points.
All in all a very interesting development and I’m sure that the Hompanzees will wax lyrical about the need to protect Jewish infants from violence even as they beat their own children black and blue, but as noted above, this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
tp1
Rubbish. No country in the world classes circumcision as illegal. NONE. Not a single one.
So you can say what you want about this practice, the fact is that it’s ACCEPTED. However, racism is not. Desecration of religion is not. Get over it, tp1.
By the way, one of my children was born with the skin underneath their tongue too tight. The solution of the doctor was to give him a sugary solution and promptly snip the skin with a pair of scissors. Likewise, that same child later had enlarged adenoids. Perfectly harmless condition, but made him snore loudly at night. The doctors anaesthetized him with gas, which he hated and promptly cut them out with a hot cauterizing wire stuffed into the back of his throat.
Care to comment?
So you honestly claim that you don’t understand the difference between
a) a surgery done for medical reason and
b) an unneeded procedure done because parents just want to do it?
It would be totally accepted to do b) if the person himself gives the persmission. But in these cases it has been a defenseless child and he has given no chance to deny the operation.
If I would go a cut off a piece of someone’s penis, I would be convicted. So why is it that exactly same thing is approved if it’s done based on religion?
We have similar problem also in Finland. Jehova’s witness’ people don’t have to do military service but people with other religion have to. So people are treated differently and have different rights based on their religion. In my opinion that is not equal treatment and that shouldn’t be allowed.
tp1
I understand the difference and I also understand that society has a tolerance and acceptance of both. Not just one society, but the GLOBAL society. Not one country has a problem with this. Is it all a Jewish conspiracy?
Both my sisters had their ears pinned back as children, friends have had cleft palates repaired or birth marks removed. These are common place ‘medical’ procedures that are in a grey area between strictly medical and aesthetic or cosmetic. But hey, let’s not admit there is any grey area here, tp1!
As someone who was described as ‘naturally’ circumsised by my birthing doctor, I can say that it’s not such a bad thing.
But, if you want to make it your mission to save baby boys from this relatively harmless cultural practice (much like body piercing), then go ahead. The fact that NO country in the world has or likely will take you seriously just goes to show yet again how out of step you are with today’s cultural norms.
And to try to use this to undermine the sentence of the Supreme Court handed down to your Master is just pathetic. It’s about the most ridiculous defence of racism and bigotry I’ve read, and I have read a lot of them!
tp1
So, on this basis, you are also against discrimination against Muslims on the basis of their treatment when it is ‘not equal’?