Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland – Page 3

Rashid and Sobia commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

On this date of March 21, 1960, the police in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire on a group of peaceful protestors demonstrating against that country’s apartheid laws. In commemoration of the 69 people that were killed on that day, the United Nations called on in 1966 the international community to intensify its efforts to banish all forms of racial discrimination.

Despite celebrating this important day, there is still a lot of work to be done.

About two years and a half ago on February 23 in the Helsinki suburb of Vantaa, a Pakistani man was brutally attacked by three young white Finnish youths.

Writes the Helsinki Times: “Assailants inflicted 20-30 stab wounds on the victim using knives and other edged weapons. His lips were also cut and was stabbed near the eye. Fortunately, the victim was transferred to the hospital urgently and underwent major surgery. Although still in ICU [intensive care unit] and in critical condition with severe injuries, his situation is not life-threatening anymore, and he has regained consciousness.”

Anti-Hate Crime Orgnisation on the forefront of anti-racism activity in Finland. The association was founded in Helsinki on September 8, 2018, and officially registered on October 3, 2018. One of the guiding forces of the association is Rashid and his family. Rashid, who was the victim of a brutal crime in 2018, wished after recovery to do work against hate crime and racism. Ther association’s first board (from left to right): Enrique Tessieri (chairperson), Tegha Abeng (substitute board member), Thomas Babila (board member), Ali Rashid (board member), Ahti Tolvanen (secretary), Rashid (honorary and board member), Sobia (vice-chairperson), and Mounir E. Eliassen (treasurer).

Much to the amazement of the family and other NGOs, the police did not consider what happened to Rashid a hate crime.

“The police called us the following day after what happened to my husband,” said the wife of the victim. “The first question I asked the police if it was a hate crime. They said it wasn’t because the suspects were intoxicated.”

The three youths received 9.5-year prison sentences each after they raised the charges in April from attempted manslaughter to attempted murder.

What does this day, The International Day for the Elimination of Racism, mean to Rashid and Sobia?

“We left our own country, our people, and family to live in peace in a foreign land, but this horrible matter happened to Rashid and us,” she explained.

Sobia said that apart from having a profound economic, social, and psychological impact on their lives today, the family has not recovered from what happened. “It made us lose trust in Finland as a safe country,” she added.

Sobia states that she and her husband continue to get suspicious looks from strangers when they are in public.

“You can tell when you are not wanted because some people give you angry looks,” she said. “And this is because you may have dark hair and don’t look like them.”

What happened to Rashid and the rest of his family after that February evening shows that only one day to celebrate the elimination of racism is not enough.

It is also a reminder that racism can strike at you.

*The announcement was also published in Migrant Tales.

STATEMENT: Spreading fake news the Finns Party way

STATEMENT 20.3.2020

ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND

SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY

FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF

The Finns Party (PS) are notorious for spreading fake news and reinforcing stereotypes about migrants. With the coronavirus pandemic, their pet topic – migrants and asylum seekers – do not attract the same attention as before.

PS MP and first vice president, Riikka Purra, said on a Yle’s A-talk that she has doubts about Finland’s health infrastructure. “I have received information from a hospital that they wash disposable equipment,” she tweeted, declining to say who her source is.

One old tactic used by anti-immigration and far-right parties is to make outrageous statements like Purra did. It does not matter if the story is true or not because it reached her followers.

We would not be surprised if the claim by Purra is only hot air. If she were speaking the truth, she’d get in touch with health authorities to investigate the claim.

It will not happen because her claim is most likely not true and in the fake-news fear-mongering league.

What she said should be strongly condemned.

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.

STATEMENT: Coronavirus, the far-right, us and the future

STATEMENT 18.3.2020

ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND

SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY

FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF

While the COVID-19, or coronavirus, is wreaking havoc to our societies and lifestyles, we should understand that to overcome this pandemic, we must first and foremost accept that we are in the same boat.

Being on the same boat means the whole boat and not just part of it facing the deadly pandemic, global economies in free fall, the threat of millions out of work, schools and borders closing, isolating the elderly, and staring into the unknown with question marks.

All of the latter is happening in a world that faces global warming and the largest-ever refugee crisis to date.

It is an opportune time to reflect on those factors that have brought us to where we are and why some of us believe that the best response we can offer to the present crisis is stocking up on toilet paper.

European far-right parties like the Finns Party (PS) are good examples of the toxic societies that they are trying to build with national greed and racism that is fed by us versus them.

We have no other choice today, but that challenge and beat back political forces that threaten to take us to wars that our grandparents and parents witnessed in World War 1 and 2.

The best defense that parties like the PS have is our denial. Without us knowing, our lack of courage to challenge social ills in our societies allow racists and Islamophobes to survive another day.

We are hopeful that when the COVID-19 crisis blows over, and if we are ready to take on board an important lesson, one of these is acknowledging that we are in the same boat. There is only one race: the human race.

The world will start to be a better place and far-right parties that spread hate, like the PS and others, will shrink in size and be exposed for what they are: a pandemic worse than COVID-19.

admin@nohatefinland.org

STATEMENT: The impact in Finland of populism on human rights and the rule of law

STATEMENT 7.3.2020

ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND

SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY

FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF

In recent days we have seen through the tragic events in Greece how the human rights of asylum seekers mean little. Such people, who have in many cases, fled war, are being used as political pawns by countries such as Turkey.

One matter is the far-right and Islamophobic Finns Party (PS) demanding that we pull out of international agreements that protect refugees and ditch human rights, another cause for concern is the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) willing to follow in the steps of the far-right party.

Kokoomus parliamentary group leader Kai Mykkänen stated after Greece decided to suspend asylum applications for a month that Finland should pass legislation to do the same.

“Finland must be prepared, if necessary, if we were exposed to pressure from a large number of [asylum] applications coming towards Finland,” he was quoted as saying in Yle and added that the country should be able to do what Greece did under exceptional circumstances.

The suggestion by Mykkänen is odd. Is there a threat to Finland from Russia? The answer is clear: Mykkänen is more interested in opinion polls than in the plight of refugees.

Ditching human rights even momentarily is the first step in restricting other civil rights that are supposed to be inalienable.

Kokoomus’ shameful suggestion reveals that human rights and democracy are expendable and can be shelved at will.

admin@nohatefinland.org

STATEMENT: The media must demand from populists of the Finns Party answers to their tough questions

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.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Näyttökuva-2020-3-4-kello-22.00.54.png — PS MP Riikka Purra suspects that most of the people in Turkey’s refugee camps aren’t asylum seekers. Her solution to the Turkish-Greek border crisis is that millions of people should apply for asylum in Turkey. Source: Yle A-talk.

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

STATEMENT: We need answers from the Finns Party and rapidly

STATEMENT 1.3.2020

ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND

SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY

FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF

After the Finns Party (PS) Youth leader Toni Jokinen scandal hit the fan hard after he admitted that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.

One of these burning questions is if we want to allow our well-functioning social welfare society to be destroyed by ethnonationalism and fascism.

Before we get to the answer to that question, it would be important that our media grows more teeth and that politicians show more leadership in defending our values and way of life, which include social equality for all irrespective of one’s background.

A good way of challenging parties like the PS is to demand some straight questions. Here are some I would ask:

The PS wants to bar Muslims and people of color from coming to Finland. Does this mean that you will ditch international agreements like the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights?
Does the PS believe that these radical changes, which would imply Finland leaving the EU, are possible?
The PS wants to scrap hate speech laws. How will you assure that migrants and minorities won’t become victims of racist harassment and hate crime?
Could the PS define what is racism and social equality?
What does social equality mean? Is it only a white Finnish right?
Your party clearly states that it does not want Finland to be culturally and ethnically diverse. (Duh. It already is). If this is the case, and it is, what are you going to do about all those who are not white like you and live in Finland?
Is the PS going to put them in camps, islands and/or send them back to where they, their parents or grandparents came from?
When the PS speaks of making radical changes in immigration law, does this mean that migrants and minorities will become officially treated as second- and third-class citizens before the law?
Tell us specifically what would Finland look like if you had your way in changing immigration law and the constitution? What would you do to people who oppose such changes?

There are many other hard questions that could be asked to PS politicians.

It is our hope and wish that not only the media but many other sectors of Finland wake up to the threat that the PS pose.

One more question to Halla-aho: Do you believe that you will succeed in changing society to fit your ethnonationalist and far-right world view?

admin@nohatefinland.org

* Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland was founded in September and registered as an NGO in October. 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.

STATEMENT: Alternate reality or getting real

STATEMENT 28.2.2020

ANTI-HATE CRIME ORGANISATION FINLAND

SUOMEN VIHARIKOSVASTAINEN YHDISTYS RY

FINSKA ANTI-HARBOTTSORGANISATION RF

This week has been a very sobering moment for some circles in Finland after former Finns Party (PS) Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen admitted that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.”

But that was only a part of the PS’ circus show. We heard PS MP Ano Turtiainen justifying a civil war if a Christian Democrat MP were convicted of ethnic agitation. There was also PS MEP Laura Hutasaari who labeled members of right-wing parties like the National Coalition Party as communists.

With the PS Youth holding a do-or-die meeting on Saturday to change the bylaws, it may well be that the youth organization may implode and break away from the PS if the bylaw changes do not materialize.

The disconcerted situation of the PS should not surprise us. What can you expect from a party whose only ideology is Islamophobia and other far-right “goodies” like ethnonationalism and massive deportations of Muslims?

The PS lives in a state of an alternate reality upheld by racism and myths. Even so, the rest of society should not look away and bury its head in the sand to challenge the menace that the PS poses on our way of life.

It’s time to get real, assess the threat and act.

admin@nohatefinland.org

Whose hands are joined in the picture of our unofficial logo?

The joined hands in the picture below have become the unofficial logo of our NGO, Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland. Do those hands have a story to tell?

I met a man a few years ago who was distraught by what had happened to him during a visit to Poland. He visited a small town in the east of the country, where he was harassed by locals. When he complained to the police, they threatened to throw him in jail.

“Can I take a picture of you to go with the story?” I asked.

“No,” he responded. “I don’t want my picture taken because I fear for my safety.”

Real hands and that reveal a story that speaks volumes about Europe today.