Tag: Immigration policy

Finland’s immigration policy is inhumane, ineffective, it shows our hostility towards asylum seekers from countries like Iraq

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It will soon be two years when large numbers of asylum seekers mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan came to Finland in hopes of moving to a country that would not only give them security but one that respects human rights and social equality. What they found, however, was totally different. 

Migrant Tales as well as others have written about the spiritual squalor of the asylum reception centers that aim to humiliate and destroy asylum seeker.

Disagree? How is it possible that an asylum seeker that faced peril on his or her journey to Finland ended up in an asylum reception center for a period that feels daily as indefinitely? On top of this insult to the asylum seekers’ integrity and a total slap in the face of our laws and values, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) and Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government wash their hands of the problem.

One asylum seeker explained his ordeal in Finland as an eternal nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

Another one described his stay at the asylum reception center in the following words:

“Being at the asylum reception center has turned into a game of Russian roulette. You pull the trigger expecting the bullet to fire. But after a while, you notice that you’ve been fooled. There are no bullets in the revolver to put an end to [y]our suffering…”

One question that Migrant Tales’ Supermen, an investigative team, have been asking is if the long waiting periods for asylum seekers is part of a plan by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) and Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government to make life as miserable as possible for them. Are these people a part of Migri campaign to warn others not to come to Finland because “you’ll face hell.”

Although we still don’t know the answer, there is one matter that is certain: When a country like Finland treats asylum seekers in the way it does it reveals something very worrying about ourselves – outright hostility with a clear plan to kick as many as possible out from here.

The present government policy towards asylum seekers, which is seen in the tightening of immigration laws like family reunification, show that Migri and the government have lost touch with common decency and respect for asylum seekers. Allowing our hostility for asylum seekers to roam freely has made us much poorer as a society. 

In 2015, thousands of asylum seekers started to come to Finland. Source: The Finnish Immigration Service.

Continue reading “Finland’s immigration policy is inhumane, ineffective, it shows our hostility towards asylum seekers from countries like Iraq”

Finland’s immigration and asylum policy is only a momentary Pyrrhic victory

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The picture below isn’t from Gaza or some war-torn region but of the playground of the Konnunsuo immigration removal center in Joutseno, Finland, a country that claims to be proud of its social achievements and respect for human rights. 

The view is the one that a family with seven children had for over a month of the playground rudely toward by high walls and barbwire.

But there is good news: The family from Karbala, Iraq, was freed from detention Friday and are now staying at an asylum reception center in Turku awaiting a decision on new asylum request, according to YLE.

This is not a picture of a prison in Gaza but where children are detained for over a month in Finland. YLE

Four years ago, Zuzeeko’s blog brought attention to an Amnesty International campaign to stop the detention of unaccompanied minors in Finland. Even if the seven Iraqi children are accompanied by their parents, the  International Convention on the Rights of the Child – to which Finland is party – outlaws the detention of children, unless as a last resort and for the shortest possible time (see article 37[b]).

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The Finnish Immigration Service asks if you mind being deported

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The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) has sent at least to students with B residence permits the following letter with the question: Does the person concerned object to being forced to leave the country and being prohibited from entering the country?

You may ask why such a question has been sent.

Migrant Tales to one such student with a B residence permit about the question sent by Migri.

“I was offended,” the person said. “From having one of the friendliest immigration services it has slumped to the same level as Estonia and Germany.”

“So what was my answer,” the person continued. “Of course I object being deported. One human right that I have is freedom of movement.”

Here is the question sent by Migri to a student with a B residence permit in Finland. “Does the person concerned object to being forced to leave the country and being prohibited from entering the country?” How would you answer? Would you mind being deported from Finland?

The letter may be just another example of Finland’s ever-stricter immigration laws. Should we be surprised considering how much the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä has tightened immigration laws.

 

Finland’s blind spot of racism will persist for as long as we play dead and tango with it

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In the land of the blind, the person who can see with one eye is king.

A Latin American saying. 

National Coalition Party (NCP) Interior Minister Paula Risikko is a pretty questionable politician. The minister is deplorable for a number of reasons: she spreads suspicion of asylum seekers and migrants and doesn’t care to between distinguish what is a far-right anti-immigration group like Suomi Ensin (Finland First) and what is not. 

Interior Minister Risikko not only approves but has given the thumbs up to a far right Finland First demonstration in February.

With ministers like these supposedly serving migrants and minorities in Finland who needs enemies?

Interior Minister Paula Risikko giving the thumbs up at a far-right Finland First demonstration in February.

It’s clear that with politicians like Risikko and parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, NCP and Center Party in government, the country’s anti-immigration and anti-cultural diversity hostility will strengthen and not go away.

The answer why is right under our noses. It’s in Risikko’s thumbs up in February, PS Foreign Minister Timo Soini’s poker face when he speaks about racism in his party, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s broken promise of offering his home to asylum seekers in September 2015, it’s in the empty “we have zero tolerance for racism” statements from politicians and so-called multicultural associations that are supposed to challenge racism but fuel it instead with their inaction.

Take a look at how our immigration law has tightened under this government and how Finland, a country that prides itself for defending and promoting human rights, denies and keeps families separated. The wretched anti-immigration atmosphere in Finland can be found in the forced deportations of hapless asylum seekers and in our inhumane immigration policy that treats migrants first and foremost with suspicion.

Continue reading “Finland’s blind spot of racism will persist for as long as we play dead and tango with it”

#cupofteawithme demonstration in Oulu, Finland, attacked with petrol bombs

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At 4:40am today a white car with three of four persons threw three petrol bombs at the tent where asylum seekers have been protesting since March. The police are investigating the incident. 

Seven days ago, on March 31, the demonstrators were forced to move from the city center to Torinranta, a worse location since there are fewer people and apparently more dangerous and prone to attacks.

The #cupofteawithme demonstration in Oulu started [on March 11] as a show of support to the #righttolife demonstration in Helsinki organized by Afghans, Iraqis and Finns.

“The people, especially the Lutheran church,  have supported us and been so good to us,” Ali Asaad Hasan, who has been involved with the demonstration in Oulu from day one, said recently.

The Iraqi asylum seeker said that today’s attack didn’t surprise him.

“Two days before this incident, a man came and sat near our tent and then kicked a barbecue grill where we warm our hands and disconnected the electricity cable,” Hasan said. “He then ran away but we caught him and called the police.”

One of the petrol bombs that didn’t work that was thrown at the tent. Fortunately, the fire was put out rapidly.

Mona Hyvärinen is one of the Finnish volunteers that helps the asylum seekers to organize their demonstration. She is unemployed and with the little money she has attempts to keep the protest afloat financially.

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“MZ” is the latest Iraqi asylum seeker to be deported from Finland to Iraq

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A woman who was separated from her Iraqi asylum seeker boyfriend after having a relationship for 18 months. I asked if I could call her. She responded: “I am now too tired to speak on the phone. I’m sad and mentally broken by what happened to me and my fiancé.” 

She wrote the following to us:

“My boyfriend, known as MZ, was apprehended by the police on Monday (27.3), put in a cell and treated in an inhumanely. They just gave him one meal, nothing else and deported him to Baghdad the following day on Tuesday (28.3). We were engaged and wanted to get married. A week ago, a police offer at the Tampere police station handed him a negative ruling from the supreme district court for asylum.

The police promised us that we can stay together but they lied to us. They did this on purpose and had this on their minds but that was against the law. My husband-to-be was given the wrong decision by the Helsinki district court. I will take the case back to the supreme district court and ask the police to bring him back from southern Iraq. He has no protection there!

My fiancé was send back to Iraq at 8am by a Tampere police officer. He’s the exact person who told my fiancé that he could stay sleep at the Kauppi asylum reception center of Tampere. My fiancé was naturally happy by the news and he trusted the police officer and he put his life in his hands. The police officer chose to send MZ in harm’s and death’s way. I know this as well as my fiancé’s family.

MZ needs government protection because his life is in danger in Iraq. He worked for a US company and got a lot of death threats as a result. The militia are after him and want him dead because they hate all those that worked for the [US]Americans in Baghdad.

Finland does not take any responsibility or gives my fiancé any chances to live. Why, Migri [Finnish Immigration Service], why?  Are you sure you can say it’s OK for him to return to Iraq and die? MZ is a young 28-year-old  good-hearted man, who had everything that he wanted in his life with me here.

You took him away and his chances to live. “

MP Ozan Yanar: The Perussuomalaiset are obsessed by migrants, they don’t have anything better to do

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Finnish Green League MP Ozan Yanar socks it to the Perussuomalaiset* (PS) city council candidate Erlin Yang and Laura Kolbe of the Center Party. What he said on the municipal election debate show explains what the PS is to a tee. 

Yanar: “For example the Perussuomalaiset, there are a lot of people obsessed with migrants. Just liked obsessed, they don’t have anything else to do. Sadly Kokoomus and Keskusta, which normally are good parties, are playing along. That’s the situation right now.”

Yang: “That’s discriminatory. Those are not nice words at all!”

Kolbe: “These are democratically elected representatives.”

Yanar: “You are doing your politics and we are criticizing [it] and that’s politics. Welcome to politics.”

You can watch the full election debate here. 

* The official translation to Finnish of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is the Finns Party. In our opinion, it is not only a horrible translation, but one that is misguided. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Such terms like the Finns Party of True Finns promote as well in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and thereafter the acronym PS.

(Migrants’ Rights Network) Dealbreaker: EU migration policy causes more harm and chaos one year after EU-Turkey deal

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By Michele Levoy*

 

 

 

 

 

As we mark the first anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal, the EU’s migration policies are more contradictory than ever, ignoring evidence and by-passing democratic procedures.

Agreed on 18 March 2016, the EU-Turkey deal drew a line in the sand, after which all migrants and refugees who crossed from Turkey to the Greek islands, and who did not apply for asylum in Greece or whose claim was refused, would be returned to Turkey.

Read the full essay here.

The EU-Turkey deal has not lived up to its promise of ending irregular migration and has, in the meantime, caused enormous suffering. People are languishing in horrible conditions across the EU, record numbers of people still die at sea, or are trapped in Turkey, Libya and beyond.

Over 60,000 people have been left in limbo in Greece, and a further 8,000 stranded in Serbia. Relocation numbers remain simply pitiful, with less than 10,000 relocations from Greece as of March 2017. Levels of trauma, depression and suicide among migrants and refugeeshave increased.

No legal value

In a recent case brought before the European Court of Justice, the EU even argued that it cannot be held responsible for any consequences of the deal because it was “just a press release”. So essentially, a document of “no legal value” is causing unjustifiable human cost, drastically changing policy and promising billions of euros to Turkey for keeping its end of the deal.

Continue reading “(Migrants’ Rights Network) Dealbreaker: EU migration policy causes more harm and chaos one year after EU-Turkey deal”

Finnish ministry of interior survey about our “polarized debate” on asylum seekers reveals the government’s prejudices and failures

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A new study published Tuesday by the interior ministry and carried out by Vaasa University raises some disturbing questions. What does the survey address and what does it reveal?

One of the many claims of the survey is that those surveyed want a more dispassionate public debate about asylum policies.

An interior ministry statement reads: “Finns would like to be able to discuss asylum policy without the fear of being stigmatized; the discourse should be relevant and fact-based. The issues that were highlighted in the discourse on asylum policy were social polarization, promotion of integration activities during the asylum seeking process and the impact of the asylum seeker situation on security.”

Other findings of the survey reveal already known tough public views about asylum seekers. For example, 82% of the respondents felt that it should be made perfectly clear to those asylum seekers that get a residence are obliged to follow our social rules  and that language courses should be emphasized (87%).

The survey doesn’t tell us what those “rules” are for the simple fact they most likely don’t know either.

Read the full statement here.

Other findings of the survey published in Helsingin Sanomat include: 83% responded that if an asylum seeker lies in the the interview process to get asylum it should affect directly his or her chances of getting a residence permit; 78% felt that the police should forcibly deport those who get rejected for asylum if they do not leave the country.

Other matters that the survey showed was that asylum seekers cause social conflicts (59%), increase crime (57%) and the threat of terrorism (64%).

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Somali National Television: Stop deportations! demonstration in Helsinki

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Xassan Kaafi Maxamed Xalane is a Somali National Television journalist who shares another news clip about the Iraqi and Afghan asylum seekers demonstrating since February against unfair deportations and rejections for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. 

We at Migrant Tales agree and support 150% these people who were attracted to Finland by their hope to live in a country that could give them shelter and which respects human rights.

That was pretty much a lie if we look at the track record of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FmVWkkwmXE