Can you believe that an MP of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, Kaj Turunen, has filed charges against Trade Union Pro chairman Antti Rinne for stating on a Helsingin Sanomt interview that the right-wing populist party had no scruples and therefore open to racism and fascism, according to Uusi Suomi.
Believe it or not, Turunen believes his party to be some kind of an ethnic group and therefore – in his opinion – Rinne is guilty (sic!) of hate speech and ethnic agitation.
This type of nonsensical behavior by the PS is nothing unusual. Remember, they love to picture themselves as the excluded victim. Turunen is exploiting this image of the anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party by charging Rinne even if it sounds ludicrous.
That’s how low Finland has stooped with the PS since 2011.
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Trade Union Pro is the largest private sector union for clerical employees. Rinne is challenging Social Democrat head Jutta Urpilainen for the chairmanship of the Social Democratic Party this spring.
Turunen was quoted as saying on Uusi Suomi that he was “very offended” by Rinne’s statements, which he considered “scary.”
The PS MP from Savonlinna may claim what Rinne said to be scary, but what’s even scarier is how little an elected lawmaker like Turunen understands our right to express ourselves freely in this society.
While the PS tries countlessly to hide its racist statements under the guise of “free speech,” there’s a big difference between criticizing a party and outright racism.
Moreover, there are countless of disgraceful examples of racism in the PS and even that one of its MPs, Juho Eerola, admitted being attracted by fascism. One former and present PS MP, James Hirvisaari and Jussi Halla-aho, respectively, have been sentenced for ethnic agitation.
What does Turunen attempt to win from this?
Expose his ignorance of our civil rights and that he can’t take criticism because it offends him.
This merely shows that Turunen is another loose cannon in the PS and an embarrassment to his colleagues, particularly as a member of the Parliamentary Committee for Ordinary Law.
Before initiating public legal proceedings, a member of the legislature should take special care to ensure that those proceedings are not an abuse of due process. Neither a political party nor any of its individual members as such (and still less anyone who happens to have supported that party) can be victims of the offence of ethnic agitation.
A political party is merely an association established for the purpose of influencing political affairs. It is not a population group in the sense of section 10 of Chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code.
The character of the PS and of the individuals who may join the party (or conversely be expelled from the party) is defined in its articles of association, but these are so broadly worded that there is no way to understand this collective as any kind of “population group”. Indeed, we could more readily understand the members of the Finnish Motorcycle Federation (SML) or the Finnish National Team Supporters’ Association to be “population groups”, as they at least have something clearly definable in common.
This complaint will be thrown out on the grounds that there is no offence to investigate.