Finland copies Islamophobic Danish anti-refugee campaign

The Finnish foreign ministry has  launched a social media campaign aiming to discourage Iraqi asylum seekers from coming to Finland, according to YLE News.

Writes YLE News: “The thrust of the Ministry’s Facebook campaign is to persuade young men coming from conflict-ridden areas that it’s not work the risk and expense to come to Finland,” Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP, Sampo Terho, was quoted as saying.

Considering that Finland’s foreign minister is none other than the chairman of the PS, Timo Soini, it’s clear that this idea came from Denmark and the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party, which is a close ideological ally of the PS.

While the Danish government placed ads in four Lebanese newspapers discouraging people from seeking asylum in Denmark, that was followed by a pro-refugee campaign (see ad below), according to the Huffington Post.

*The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.