Saido Mohamed has defected from the National Coalition Party (NCP) to the Greens, according to YLE.
“After the parliamentary elections [April 2015] I started to have serious thoughts about membership in the National Coalition Party,” she told Migrant Tales. “My values and morality were in conflict with the party’s line on immigration policy.”
Mohamed said she was disappointed that the NCP hasn’t shown any leadership in challenging ever-growing hate speech and racism.
“I’m now joining a party that speaks how things are and what should be changed concerning migrants in Finland,” she said. “In politics you change things with other people.”
While the Finnish media has treated NCP Interior Minister Petteri Orpo with kid gloves, Mohamed pointed out in the YLE story that is under Orpo’s leadership that Finland has tightened immigration policy especially in the area of family reunification.
“I have waited from the National Coalition Party courage to condemn simply and clearly ever-growing racism and hate speech,” she was quoted as saying in YLE. “That type of courage I haven’t seen [from the party]. On the contrary, the long spell of silence has been easy to interpret that the party approves [racism and hate speech].”
Read full story here.
Mohamed, who chairs theFinnish Somalia Network, is a substitute councilwoman for Helsinki. She was chosen in 2011 as the refugee of the year.