STATEMENT 4.3.2020
ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND
SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY
FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF
Finns Party (PS) first vice president Riikka Purra reiterated on Yle’s A-studio Wednesday her party’s wish to end humanitarian-based immigration, which is code for Finland to ditch its international refugee agreements and respect for human rights.
If Purra and her party had their way, not one Muslim from a region like the Middle East could seek asylum in Finland.
Article 14 of The UN Human Rights Declaration clearly states that,
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
There has been a lot of discussion in Finland about the role of the media in fueling a hostile environment against migrants, especially Muslims and people of color.
An example of the above was shown in the A-studio interview when host Anikka Damström didn’t care to ask what ending humanitarian-based immigration would imply for Finland and its international commitments.
Damström’s first question was if the 10,000-100,000 people at the Turkish-Greek border are in need of asylum. The question is a loaded one in a country that suspects asylum seekers all the way up to the president of Finland, Sauli Niinistö.
What kind of a country would be if it stopped respecting human rights? We only have to look at Poland and Hungary to get an answer to the question.
Finnish journalism should get real and start to ask politicians tough questions and demand answers.
Without vigilant media, we are doomed to maintaining and living with Finland’s hostile environment against migrants and minorities.
Without leadership from the media and Finland’s political class, populist and Islamophobic parties like the PS will continue to cast their dark shadow on the country.
admin@nohatefinland.org
* Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland was founded in September 2018 and registered as an NGO the following month. The aim of the NGO is to tackle and eradicate hate crime and all forms of discrimination in Finland such as anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, misogyny and other forms of social exclusion through education and training, seminars, events, conferences, among others.