If there is one politician in Finland that gives some heartburn, that politician is without a doubt Paavo Väyrynen. It is unfortunate that the Finnish media doesn’t return to the cold war era and look into Väyrynen’s record when he was the foreign minister most of the time from 1977 to 1993. During that period there were severe censorship issues in the Finnish media and human rights violations when, among other things, Soviet citizens were forcibly returned to the USSR even after asking for asylum. Are we surprised that Väyrynen is anti-EU, anti-immigration and a nationalist?
He was always those things. Finland’s cold war stance was just that: anti-EU, anti-immigration, censorship, human rights violations, and nationalism.
The media should talk about his track record when mentioning Väyrynen.
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