Finland: Distasteful suggestion that minorities should wear armbands

In Hitler's Germany, people from minority groups - Jews, Roma and homosexuals - were forced to wear armbands. Jews were marked with Jewish stars and armbands by the NS regime in ghettos and concentration camps. In concentration camps, they wore signs to distinguish them from non-Jewish prisoners. [Source]. A look into history is necessary in order to put into perspective a controversial blog post by Helena Eronen, a Perussuomalaiset aide in Finland. The assistant of a "True" Finns Party MP suggested in a blog post that people from minority groups in Finland should be forced to wear symbols on their sleeves.

Helena Eronen blogged on Wednesday 11 April 2012 that foreigners, Swedish-speaking Finns and homosexuals should be forced to wear symbols so that the police can easily identify their background. [Source]. She said for instance that marks will help the police easily identify a Muslim from Somalia or a beggar from Romania. According to Eronen, Muslims should be marked with a crescent, Russians with a sickle and hammer, Cambodians with landmines and Americans with hamburgers. [Source].

She wrote the blog post after reports of racial profiling by Finnish police.

Some have called Helena Eronen's blog post "satire", but to many others, including me, it's distasteful, offensive and proposes institutionalized racial or ethnic profiling. Her suggestion evokes memories of the holocaust and how a group of people were literally "marked"  for discrimination, degrading treatment and death by a brutal regime.

Eronen is an assistant of James Hirvisaari, an MP of the populist right-wing Perussuomalaiset political party. Hirvisaari was convicted and fined for hate speech in 2011. [Source]. Not surprisingly, he defended his assistant's distasteful comments targeting minorities and reportedly republished her blog post on his own website after it was deleted from where it was originally posted.

The parliamentary group of Perussuomalaiset reportedly decided that Helena Eronen should be sacked immediately from her position as parliamentary aide. This could be an attempt by the anti-immigration and Euro-skeptic party to safe face, but the harm has already been done. What the party is made of is no longer a secret. It remains to be seen whether Eronen's boss - who seemingly shares her views - will give her the boot as decided by the parliamentary group.

*Photo: History in Chronology.

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Racial slurs against Migrant Tales blogger in Finland

Many foreigners living in Finland have come to terms with the bitter reality of the fact that racism and xenophobia run deep - both online and offline. In 2011, Former president Tarja Halonen acknowledged the rise of racism and xenophobia in Finland and urged Finns to "dare defend" victims of racism. The Deputy Prosecutor General, Jorma Kalsky, condemned politicians for using hate speech to win votes. The Ombudsman for Minorities, Eva Biaudet expressed concern about hate speech online and on the ground. Despite all these calls by some top ranking Finnish officials, racism persists. A fellow blogger who writes about "salient issues" facing immigrants and minority groups in Finland was recently attacked online with racial slurs and xenophobic language.

On 17 March 2012, the author of Migrant Tales reported on his blog that his picture was copied from Facebook without his consent and posted on a Finnish website alongside offensive and abusive language against his person.

I read the post and was taken aback by the language used against him. He was called "an immigrant douche","mudface", "immigrant mudface" and "n*****" - for advocating multiculturalism and diversity in Finland and for "bashing" the True Finns (Perussuomalaiset) - an extreme right-wing anti-immigration political party.

The racist content is posted on a Finnish website either anonymously or using pseudonyms. It is worth mentioning at this point that I have long held the view that people who post abusive and unreasonable comments online anonymously or using pseudonyms are cowards who lack the courage to take responsibility for their actions.

It is ironic that people who think that there's no racism and/or xenophobia in Finland use racist and xenophobic language to make their case. This is a perfect example of what "shoot yourself in the foot" means.

This outright display of racism and online bullying adds perspective to the plight of immigrants and minority groups in Finland and proves Migrant Tales right.

The administrator of the website that provides the platform for hate and racial slurs has misguidedly tried to evoke freedom of expression as justification for racist and xenophobic language posted on his site. He seems to be unaware that rights come with duties and responsibilities. Article 10(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) states that the right to free expression "may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary".

It therefore follows that racial slurs, hate speech, incitement of hate and death threats are not protected by Article 10 of the ECHR and other human rights instruments.

Finnish law frowns on racism, incitement of hate, death threats and the violation of the rights of others, including the right to privacy - which was violated the moment a private individual's picture was hijacked from Facebook without his permission, superimposed with racially offensive texts and posted on a hostile website.

These attacks against Migrant Tales are criminal and immoral attempts to intimidate and silence a blogger who writes about issues facing immigrants and minority groups in Finland.

According to Migrant Tales, the matter was reported to the police on 17 March 2012.

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Finland: Shooting of Immigrants in Oulu pizzeria must be condemned

In a country where a Member of Parliament for the Perussuomalaiset (PS) political party can openly use racist and derogatory language (video) against Muslims and people of African decent and is not forced to resign as representative of the people, it is easy to conclude that racism is deep-seated. However, any racially motivated shooting or killing must be unequivocally condemned in the strongest terms by all people of goodwill.

On Saturday 18 February 2012, a gunman opened fire in a pizzeria in Oulu, northern Finland - killing one man and injuring another. The gunman - a 24-year old Finn - turned the gun on himself and later died in a hospital on Sunday evening.

The pizzeria shooting claimed the life of a 21-year-old man of Moroccan origin and left a 42-year-old Moroccan man wounded. The owner of the pizzeria - an Algerian - was not hit. According to a news report published on Monday 20 February 2012 in Metro Helsinki, a daily newspaper in Helsinki, the shooting could have been motivated by racism. Other sources say police believe the shooter was not motivated by racism.

However, given the current toxic political climate and hateful rhetoric by some influential politicians, Members of Parliament and ordinary Finnish citizens targeting immigrants, racism cannot be easily ruled out as a motivation.

Following the Oulu pizzeria shooting, for instance, Tommi Rautio, a board member of PS - a right wing anti-immigration party - reportedly wrote on Facebook that the shooter should be given a medal because there is "a war going on and for every war decorations are handed out." [Source]. This speaks volumes about what the PS is made of and sheds light on the sorry-state of affairs in Finnish-Immigrant relations.

A poll commissioned by Helsinki Sanomat revealed that Muslims in general are among the groups most affected by racism and intolerance in Finland. In 2011, President Tarja Halonen expressed concern about the rise of racism and xenophobia in Finland.

The Oulu pizzeria shooting is the third incident in less than one month that resulted in the tragic death of immigrants - two Somalians and one Moroccan.

Finland is going down the wrong road. All persons of good conscience in the Nordic country must condemn racism and racially motivated crimes in the strongest terms and distance themselves from people who use immigrants and other minority groups as targets or punching bags. Politicians who use their influence to preach hate or sway public opinion against minority groups must be held to account, especially when their words are translated into action. More importantly, law enforcement must take hate crimes more seriously and ensure that perpetrators bear the full weight of the law. No one should be killed or discriminated against because he or she looks different or professes a different faith in a society that prides itself as free and democratic.

*Photo of Finnish police car: Wikipedia.

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Sweden Democrats walk out of church over racism sermon

Stockholm Cathedral. Photo by Jürgen Howaldt.

It is no secret that on 19 September 2010, Sweden Democrats, a hard line extreme right political party was voted into parliament for the first time since it was founded in 1988. You would agree that the results of this historic parliamentary election clearly indicated that an increasing number of Swedes share the polarising ideology of the Sweden Democrats. Meanwhile in Sweden, dust is yet to settle after the extreme right electoral gains as Sweden Democrats have been on the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The most recent drama staged by the party was a walkout of church on 5 October 2010 over a sermon about racism and xenophobia.

During a church service in Stockholm's Cathedral (Storkyrkan) preceding the opening of parliament (Riksdag), the bishop of the diocese of Stockholm delivered a sermon about the ills of racism and xenophobia. Here is what the bishop reportedly said, among other things:

“Yesterday evening thousands of people gathered in Stockholm and in various parts of the country to make their voices heard. To call out their disgust at that which divides people. The racism that says that you don’t have as much worth as I do; that you shouldn’t have the same rights as me; aren’t worthy of living in freedom..."

Sweden Democrats' parliamentary delegation considered the sermon to be an attack against them, hence walked out of church in protest.

The party has tried over the years to distance itself from racism and xenophobia, but its manifesto suggest otherwise.

While it is true that this walk out in protest against a racism sermon could be attributed to an attempt by Sweden Democrats to score political points, it is also true that racism and xenophobia have no place in a free society and should be unequivocally denounced wherever "two or three" lawmakers are gathered.

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