Who can forget Black February 2012, when three Muslims lost their lives in a span of about three weeks in January-February? The last one, which was horrific, ended with the cold-blooded killing of a Muslim at a pizzeria in Oulu. A former Perussuomlaiset (PS) councilman wrote on Facebook that a medal should be awarded to a Finn called Janne for shooting and killing one of the victims.
The former PS councilman from Köyliö, Tommi Rautio, was sentenced in December and fined 120 euros by a Satakunta regional court for ethnic agitation.
He was sacked from the party in March and not reelected in October to city council. He got nine votes.
National Coalition Party Helsinki politician Ossi Mäntylähti was responsible for bringing Rautio’s comments to national media attention. Migrant Tales was also present in informing the immigrant community and foreign media, of which Boris Peltonen of Germany daily Die Welt got in touch with Mäntylahti and Migrant Tales.
Read Die Welt story (in German) here.
Rautio resurfaces Sunday on Mäntylahti’s Facebook thread. He explains all of the things he lost after his conviction but nowhere does he express any remorse for what he wrote.
Go to Ossi Mäntylahti’s Facebook page here.
He claims that what happened to him was Mäntylahti’s fault because he was provoked. After his conviction, Rautio claims he lost all of his friends, relationships, job and source of livelihood.
Rautio claimed in court that what he wrote about giving a medal to Janne was done ironically.
This is what he wrote after the killing in February:
”If Janne is the one [who shot the foreigners at the pizzeria] then we should give Janne a medal…if not Ossi [Mäntylahti] there is already a war going on and in every war [soldiers] are decorated.”
If you visit Rautio’s Facebook page, you’ll find Islamophobic postings and groups.
This week, the Youth League of the National Coalition Party published its 2014 program, where it suggests, among other things, scrapping ethnic agitation laws in Finland.
If ethnic agitation laws were scrapped, Rautio would not have been convicted for hate speech.