If there is something to reinforce from the Southern Ostrobothnia district court ruling of the Fares Al-Abaidi case, it is the following: In some cases, the police and the courts play down racist crime. The sentence was a miscarriage of justice. Al-Abaidi has appealed the ruling. Why is the ruling a travesty? Because racism is
Read on »Posts Tagged: hate crime
Fares Al-Abaidi: “I was very disappointed [with the sentence, and] it was a very, very bad decision.”
Fares Al-Abaidi got a hard lesson on Wednesday from the Southern Ostrobothnia district court on Finnish justice: only one person was convicted after a group of white Finns attacked him in June 2020. That person, PV, was forced to pay Al-Abaidi about 3,900 euros for his suffering. “He got away with only a fine while
Read on »Two stories that reveal a lot about racism in Finland
Two stories that expose injustice and denial in Finland became public this week: First, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland ruled Thursday that the police ethnically profiled singer Musta Barbari’s mother and sister in July 2016. The other news is about an Iraqi youth who white Finns violently attacked in July 2020. Both cases are not only
Read on »Case Teuva: Prosecutor to bring charges probably next week – hate crime or not?
The state prosecutor plans to make public the charges against the perpetrators who attacked Fares Al-Obaidi over two-and-a-half years ago in June 2020 in Teuva, a town in Western Finland. The big question is whether the prosecutor sees what happened as a hate crime. The Finnish penal code does not recognize the term “hate crime.” Section
Read on »Helsinki court of appeal increases involuntary manslaughter sentence to nine years for stabbing Somali-Finnish youth
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED The Helsinki court of appeal* has increased Miro Pesonen’s involuntary manslaughter conviction to a nine-year prison term from five years previously and pay to the parents 10,000 euros for their suffering, according to Yle. Pesonen is a white Finn who stabbed Keyse Abdifatah Maalesh at Kannelmäki Helsinki railway station in April 2020. The mother
Read on »Seinäjoki police wrapping up their suspected hate crime investigation. Charges are expected this month.
The Seinäjoki police, which had taken over a year and eight months to investigate a crime when Fares Al-Obaidi was attacked by over ten people from the Western Finnish town of Teuva, plans to bring charges this month, according to the victim. The incident happened on June 6, 2020 when over ten suspected townspeople from
Read on »Somali-Finn victim’s mother appeals manslaughter conviction
The mother of eighteen-year-old Keyse Abdifatah Maalesh, stabbed to death at Kannelmäki Helsinki railway station on April 26, 2020, by a white Finn called Miro Pesonen, is appealing the involuntary manslaughter ruling on September 7, 2020, by the Helsinki District Court. The mother who said that she had not found the energy to pursue the
Read on »Kirkko ja kaupunki: Security costs at the Helsinki Synagogue soar
It should not surprise us that anti-Semitism is also on the rise in Finland. An article in Kirkko ja kaupunki revealed the cost of security needed at the Helsinki Synagogue has soared between 2017 and 2021. Yaron Nadbornik, president of the 1,100-strong Jewish community of Helsinki, was quoted as saying that the cost of security at
Read on »Police University College: Suspected hate crime cases retreat in 2020 by 5.22% to 852 from the previous year
Suspected hate crimes reported to the police in Finland during2020 totaled 852 cases, which is a 5.22% fall from 899 hate crimes in the previous year, according to the Police University College. As in previous years, the lion’s share (88.5%) of all hate crimes were motivated by national-ethnic origin (649/75.8% of all cases) and religion (108/12.7%).
Read on »Exposing white Finnish privilege #80: Violence against you counts but mine doesn’t
Radical-right Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party MP, Sebastian Tynkkynen, who has two ethnic agitation convictions and a third pending, is trying to get the most political mileage from an incident at an #elokapina demonstration. Some unknown persons at the demonstration allegedly attempted to attack Tynkkynen and shoved him. The police asked if the MP wanted to
Read on »The suspects of one of Finland’s worst hate crimes in 2020 may face charges in early June
Remember the young Muslim who was violently attacked by a gang of white Finns in June in the Western Finnish town of Teuva? According to Fares Al-Obaidi, the police plan to conclude their investigations into the crime in early June. What happened to Al-Obaidi last year changed his life. He moved away to Espoo to
Read on »Slow due justice – if any – plaguing racialized communities of Finland
Hate speech, hate crime, and racism appear to rank low on police’s priority list. Many people who have turned to the police to report such a crime are usually surprised by the following fact: slow response and reaction; your case may never see the light of a day in court. A shameful case is that
Read on »27-year-old Iraqi: “An asylum seeker is an animal and becomes a human being in Finland until he gets a residence permit”
TOPLINE In November, an Iraqi asylum seeker called Ziad* from Jämsänkoski heard the court sentence a man who had threatened him the previous year with a knife and called him a vitun pakolainen (f**king asylum seeker) and vitun ulkomaalainen (f**king foreigner). KEY FACT The verdict? A one-month jail sentence and a 700-euro fine paid to the victim. KEY
Read on »Remember the Muslim youth violently attacked by a group of enraged townspeople of Teuva?
Remember Fares Al-Obaidi, 19, who was chased and violently attacked on Saturday, June 6, by a gang of angry residents of Teuva, a town in Western Finland? Six months have passed since that terrible incident, and no charges have been brought yet against the alleged attackers. “The fact that I know nothing about my case
Read on »Dear White People of Finland: What happened in Kannelmäki last April?
Migrant Tales insight: This story was written by a member of the Somali community and edited by Migrant Tales the following week after a young Somali Finn was knifed and killed at the Helsinki Kannelmäki train station. The letter will be published as charges against the suspect will be apparently made public by the police
Read on »Was the stabbing of an eighteen-year-old Somali Finn a hate crime?
Migrant Tales asked in April after the tragic death of an eighteen-year-old Somali Finn in Helsinki on April 26 is treated by the police as a hate crime. What is equally surprising is the total news blackout on social media by the police as if communities affected by what happened don’t have the right to
Read on »The toothless response of the police and society to human trafficking is similar to other social ills like racism
A column by Helsingin Sanomat gave a realistic view of human trafficking and why there it continues unhinged. One problem that the column cites, and which is a problem concerning other racist crimes committed against migrants and minorities, is fear of the police. The column, which exposed some of the shortcomings of protecting victims of
Read on »The assault that happened in Teuva against a Muslim should be treated as a hate crime
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED The mayor of Teuva Veli Nummela, the town’s newspaper Tejuka were straightforward about the attack against a Muslim in early June in the western Finnish town of Teuva. Nummela wrote in a blog about the anti-racism work done at the town’s schools. “We will evaluate these practices [anti-racism] at the beginning
Read on »Racist harassment of a mother and daughter in Helsinki’s Malminkartano
I spoke to a distraught Iraqi mother who told me how she was harassed, even shoved and pushed by six people who threatened to kill her in the Helsinki neighborhood of Malminkartano. Why? Because she and her daughters are Muslims. “I was traveling with my nine-year-old daughter on the train from Vantaa and got off
Read on »What happened and led to the death of a Somali Finn? Where do we go from here?
How would we tell the events that led to the death of an eighteen-year-old Somali Finn youth last Sunday at the Kannelmäki railway station? According to one account, supposedly the victim’s witness that experienced the whole horrific event, which has shocked many, especially Somalis and other black people. According to one account, the victim and
Read on »Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah: Returning to Finland’s Black February 2012
Migrant Tales insight: The story below was one that was published in February 2012 about “Black February,” when three Muslims died and a Finn committed suicide after killing one Muslim and wounding another. As with the Pakistani who was viciously attacked in February 2018, there were a lot of question marks about how the police
Read on »Kuopio tragedy: The Muslim “terrorist” and the “mentally troubled” lone wolf white guy
The tragedy that took place Tuesday in Kuopio, which claimed the life of a person and left ten injured, including the suspect, raises a lot of questions. One of these is if we should treat what happened as a terrorist act or just some mentally troubled lone wolf? The National Board of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi) Detective
Read on »Finland should wake up to its hate speech, hate crime and racism problem
Green League MP Iris Suomela raised an essential question in parliament on Wednesday about rape. She said that there are “hundreds of thousands” rape cases in Finland of which 50,000 are reported annually to Victim Support Finland (RIKU). “The end result of all this is that the police record about 1,200 [rape] cases [annually] of
Read on »European Network Against Racism Shadow Report on Racist Crime and Institutional Racism in Europe
Brussels, 12 September 2019 – Institutional racism prevails in criminal justice systems across the EU and impacts how racist crimes are (not) recorded, investigated and prosecuted, according to a new report published by ENAR today. “Twenty years after the Macpherson Report revealed that the British police was institutionally racist, we now find that criminal justice
Read on »Council of Europe: Mayday, Mayday, Finland must get a grip on rising hate speech, racism, and implement trans rights
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED In the face of rising hate speech, racism and the lack of trans rights, the Council of Europe Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) called today on Finland to tackle such social issues. ECRI added: “[t]o tackle growing racist and intolerant hate speech, better coordinate integration activities for immigrants and review
Read on »Milliklubi night club makes the headlines and for all the wrong reasons. Is it a coincidence?
For some foreigners or Finns who are not white, Milliklubi (Kaivonkatu 12, 00100 Helsinki) is not the top night club on their list. In 2013, a Yle documentary on discrimination showed how the bouncers at the night club denied entry due to ethnic background. Daniel Malpica, an artist who lives in Finland, states in a
Read on »Junes Lokka’s “racist” and “Nazi clown” case: Court sends clear message who has racist immunity in Finland
When white people decide what is racism and what the boundaries are, they mess up and make matters worse for migrants, minorities and Others. What are we supposed to make out of this? A well-known anti-immigration activist with ties to neo-Nazi and Islamophobic groups is called in a closed Facebook group by a journalist “a
Read on »QUOTE OF THE DAY: The police’s and media’s double standards and racial baises
“We read about two cases involving 10-year-old girls who were attacked and were not white and Muslims. In the case of Oulu, where the police were especially active together with Yle and other media in racializing the sexual assault cases, should we be surprised that this way of looking at things is a one-way street?
Read on »10-year-old girl beaten by adolescents in Vantaa, Finland, for not being white
A new case of a 10-year-old girl being beaten allegedly because of her Muslim background reported today by the police and television station MTV. The last case, which also involved a 10-year-old Muslim girl, happened just before Christmas in the suburb of Espoo.
Read on »Oulu mosque vandalized for the ninth time
The Oulu mosque was vandalized Tuesday for the ninth time since September 2017, according to Dr Abul Mannan, who heads the Islamic Society of Northern Finland. The police said in a statement the attack took place at 5:10 am when a suspect smashed a window with a bike rack and threw a smoke grenade inside the premises. The fire department was called as well.
Read on »February 2018-2019: How a Pakistani family in Finland encountered and defied hate
A year has elapsed since Rashid H., a Pakistani migrant, was brutally attacked by three white Finnish youths in Vantaa on a Friday, February 23. The attack not only changed Rashid’s and his family’s life permanently, what happened also spread fear in the Pakistani community of Finland.
Read on »بـــيــــــــــــان منظمة مكافحة جرائم الكراهية في فنلندا
A letter from Rashid H., the Pakistani migrant who was brutally attacked by three white Finnish youths. Where is justice?
Dear friend,
Even if the district court and court of appeal did not accept what happened to me was a hate crime, I feel today desperate and abandoned. When I was in the hospital with 30 stab wounds, fractured skull and other life-threatening injuries caused by three white Finnish youths, I felt forsaken. Not one person from the government or any newspaper cared to contact me.
Read on »Finnish white privilege #58: How the police, media and politicians fuel Finland’s hostile environment against Muslims and migrants
As the sexual abuse cases in Oulu gather more steam and public outrage, one of the lessons we are overlooking is our reaction and racism. What role do the police, media and politicians play in fostering hostility towards migrants in general and Muslims in particular?
Read on »Facebook Abdirahim Husu Hussein: Migrants are individuals and you can’t paint them with a single brush
Migrant Tales insight: Everyone that lives in Finland deserves to live in a safe environment. Read the original posting here.
Read on »When will we know the truth about what happened to the 10-year-old Muslim girl who was violently attacked?
A letter to the editor in Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest daily, puts into question statements by the police and the principal of the Juvankoski school, where a 10-year-old girl wearing a hijab was attacked last month by four of her classmates.
Read on »What about if what happened to a 10-year-old Muslim girl last month is true?
Remember the picture of a 10-year-old Muslim girl that went viral on the Internet on December 19? We still have not heard from the parents of the girl covered with blood in the picture below. What about if the story is true and that racism was the cause that sparked the incident?
Read on »Why aren’t we hearing the opinion of the parents concerning the beating of a 10-year-old Muslim girl in Finland?
The tragic picture of a 10-year-old girl below covered in blood kicked unconscious by her white Finnish classmates, raises a lot of interesting questions: One of these is why we’re not hearing what the victim’s parents have to say?
Read on »Two Police statements, two different views on the racialization of crime
What happens when a crime happens? Which groups get singled out and what is the age limit for labelling them?
Read on »UPDATED: Muslim girl beaten unconsious by fellow children in the Finnish city of Espoo
A ten-year-old Muslim girl was beaten unconscious in Espoo, according to MTV. The picture of the victim was posted on Instagram, according to sources that contacted Migrant Tales.
Read on »Statement Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland: Two reports that should worry us
This week Finland got cold water thrown at it from two reports that reveal hate crime and Afrophobia are serious problems. One may rightfully ask how a country like Finland, which claims to have one of the best education systems in the world, can do so little to stop such hatred.
Read on »Police Uiversity College: Hate crimes rise in 2017 by 8% to 1,165 cases on year
Hate crimes* that were reported to the police in Finland during 2017 rose by 7.97% to 1,165 cases compared with 1,079 cases the previous year, according to the Finnish Police University College.
Read on »European Agency of Fundamental Rights: Finland has the most racial harassment cases against PAD of 12 EU countries surveyed
A new study by the European Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveals that a third of people of African descent (PAD) surveyed have experienced racial harassment in the last five years. That’s not all: Perceived racist harassment was highest in Finland (63%) and least prevalent in Malta 20% (see chart below).
Read on »Anti-Hate Crime Organisation Finland: Who and why we are
Even if the NGO Anti-Hate Crime Organisation (Suomen viharikosvastainen yhdistys ry) was founded on September 8 and registered on October 3 by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH), our association was spreading its first roots on February 23.
Read on »Exposing white Finnish privilege #52: Having no privilege is dangerous
A report commissioned by the Finnish ministry of the interior revealed that migrants are 2.5 times more likely than white Finns to be assaulted, reports YLE News. Another study published in 2014 by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), showed that first-generation immigrants at school are more likely to experience bullying, physical threats and sexual
Read on »“Justice was served” with the 9.5-year prison sentence for brutally attacking a Pakistani migrant in February
The wife of the Pakistani migrant, whose husband was brutally attacked by three Finnish white youths in February, is satisfied with the 9.5 year prison sentence handed by a Vantaa court Friday. The three youths were sentenced for attempted murder.
Read on »Exposing white Finnish privilege #51: The police are the defenders of white power and privilege
Ask Finland’s Romany minority If you want to understand how the Finnish police service reinforces and defends white power and privilege. I did this recently, and the answers did not surprise me. According to a member of the Roma community, the Finnish police play down discrimination, especially if it involves a member of that minority
Read on »To Finland from a Pakistani family: A second letter about hate crime*
Migrant Tales (MT) insight: In mid-March, MT published a letter from a Pakistani family. The victim, the father of the family, was brutally attacked on February 23 by three white Finnish youths. The victim and his wife believe that what happened was a hate crime. The police disagree. According to the wife, the following day after the Pakistani migrant was attacked, the police called the wife and stated that it was not a hate crime because “the suspects were intoxicated.”
Read on »Three white Finnish youths who attacked brutally a Pakistani migrant are charged with attempted murder, not a hate crime
After the brutal attack on a Pakistani migrant in Vantaa on February 23, the police investigating the case has deemed that what happened is not a hate crime but attempted murder, according to a police statement. The victim and his wife were adamant about the motive of the crime, which they considered racially motivated.
Read on »From Black February 2012 to the brutal attack of a Pakistani migrant in 2018 – are these hate crimes?
Is it a coincidence that Black February, which took place in 2012 and involved the violent deaths of three members of the Muslim community of Finland, happened on the same month when a Pakistani was brutally attacked by three white Finns in Vantaa? While the timing may have happened by chance, there are similarities between what happened in February 2012 and on February 23.
Read on »A letter to Finland about hate crime*
Dear Finland,
Our family suffered a terrible crime on February 23 in Vantaa when three youths approached my husband from Pakistan at night and asked for a cigarette. My husband is a good and loving person. If you ask him for a cigarette, he’ll give you two. But there was a problem: The three youths that asked for cigarettes looked like minors.
Read on »The roots of hate crime and hate speech are in Finnish society, right under our noses
The media and police are mirrors of our prejudices in our society. Our lame reaction to such social ills not only expose our weaknesses as a society but hide and protect the real culprit: institutional racism.
Read on »The violent attack against a Pakistani migrant in Vantaa should be treated as a hate crime
The Pakistani, who was attacked in a brutal manner in Vantaa on February 23 by three white Finnish youths carrying a knife, ax, and a pointed object, sees what happened to him was a hate crime.*
Read on »Finding help if you are a victim of a hate crime is difficult in Finland
There was a horrible attack against a Pakistani father of two over on February 23. Just to get an idea of the wounds he sustained on that terrible night, it took last week four hours to remove his stitches.
Read on »Pakistanis, Muslims, feel insecure in Finland after dreadful attack against a migrant
The brutal attack against a Pakistani on Friday night (February 23) is one of the worst-ever against a migrant. It took four hours last week to remove his stitches. As a result of what happened, the Pakistani and Muslim communities of Finland don’t feel safe.
Read on »“Atrocious” would be a light word to describe the violence against a Pakistani immigrant last week in Vantaa, Finland
The Pakistani who suffered a violent attack on Friday in Vantaa is recovering in hospital. It is a miracle that he survive, according to a nurse who said that the victim was only minutes away from death if help did not have arrived on time. There was a significant loss of blood.
Read on »Pakistani immigrant stabbed in Vantaa: What constitutes a hate crime?
On Friday night, a Pakistani was brutally attacked by a group of youths and stabbed at least twenty times and repeatedly hit with ax causing, among other injuries, a fractured skull. The police are quiet until Tuesday when it puts out a statement, which does not mention that this may be a hate crime.
Read on »Could the police tell us why stabbing a Pakistani 20-30 times does not qualify as a suspected hate crime?
There are already some questions concerning the terrible stabbing of a Pakistani in the city of Vantaa on Friday night. One of these is why it took until Tuesday for the police to release a statement? Another matter is a quote in Tuesday’s Helsingin Sanomat detective chief inspector, Mikko Minkkinen, who was quoted as saying that it
Read on »Finland: Retreating into a shell and fuelling xenophobia and racism
As Finland retreats deeper into its shell and ethnocentrism, the it feeds the beast of xenophobia and racism. Apart from Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Laura Huhtasaari, who openly encourages direct violence and hatred against migrants and minorities, there are others that are just as guilty.
Read on »For some asylum seekers Kemi, Finland, is a dangerous place after 8 pm on Saturdays
Some asylum seekers in the northern Finnish city of Kemi claim that they do not leave their homes after eight pm on Saturdays because it’s too dangerous. One asylum seeker, who got a residence permit, said that this was advice that he received from the Red Cross.
Read on »YLE News: What Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen forgets to tell us about growing hate speech in Finland
There’s a lot of evidence of how Finland denies an issue like racism and near-constantly plays down its impact on migrants, minorities, and society in general. Prosecutor General Raija Toivainen claims in a YLE News story that racist statement lead to bitterness, radicalization, and terrorism.
Read on »Facebook Boodi Kabbani: The Finnish police don’t protect migrants
Read on »
Double standards by the Finnish police. Who can insult whom?
These two videos speak volumes about the differential treatment of asylum seekers and white Finns by the police. In the first video, two Finnish-speaking asylum seekers are handcuffed at the immigration detention center of Joutseno. One of them apparently for saying something inappropriate.
Read on »PS’ Third Vice President Juho Eerola is suspected of ethnic agitation in Finland
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* third vice president Juho Eerola is suspected of ethnic agitation, according to YLE News. If convicted, only PS First Vice President Laura Huhtasaari would be the only board member of the party that doesn’t have a conviction for ethnic agitation. Chairman Jussi Halla-aho was convicted in 2012 and MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, the second vice president, convicted in January.
Read on »As Finland heals from Friday it must address homegrown extremism and violence against migrants and minorities
Today more than ever Finland needs leadership to heal from what happened on Friday but also condemn openly all forms of violence in this country. The greatest fear that some migrants and minorities have n Finland after the terrorist attack in Turku are reprisals against Muslims and migrants.
Read on »The PS steers further right exposing its shameless Islamophobia, racism, bigotry and ultranationalism
Like rubbing salt on Finland’s wound, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* newly elected chairman Jussi Halla-aho’s far-right anti-immigration policy got reinforcement after three Islamophobes were elected to lead the PS: Laura Huuhtasaari, Teuvo Hakkarainen and Juho Eerola were elected first, second and third vice-president, respectively.
Read on »Interior Minister Paula Risikko and National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehminen are the great pretenders about racism
The recent scandal that came to light of a secret Facebook group comprising of about 2,800 police officials reveals everything about what racism is in Finland. A big chunk of that racism is denial and playing down the social ill.
Read on »The Finnish League for Human Rights: Is Finland in need of hate crimes prevention law?
Hate crimes affect members of minority groups all over the world. Some countries take it more seriously than others by passing and enacting hate crime prevention laws, and by investigating suspected cases and prosecuting perpetrators so as to deliver justice to victims. The number of suspected hate crimes registered by Finnish police have increased more
Read on »Throwing water and hurling racist insults at black people is ok if you are a white Finn
Migrant Tales has followed a story that sadly began in the Helsinki neighborhood of Herttoniemi in May 2016. A white woman threw a bucketful of water at three adults and four children from the second floor and started hurling racist insults. Two of the victims were women from Kenya and another one was a white woman from the United States.
Read on »Finnish ministry of interior survey about our “polarized debate” on asylum seekers reveals the government’s prejudices and failures
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?
Read on »How the Perussuomalaiset party permit racism to see another day in Finland
As almost everyone knows in this country, Finland will hold municipal elections on April 9. The right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)* are in shock for a number of reasons: their chairman, Timo Soini, who has run the party for 20 years is stepping down in June, and recent polls suggest that they will suffer a stinging defeat in the municipal elections.
Read on »Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s poor track record on challenging xenophobia and hate speech
The government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä not only has tightened immigration policy but is complacent and near-silent about the rise of xenophobia and hate speech in Finland. Sure, we’ve heard so many times the familiar “we’re against racism” affirmations, which are only catchphrases that are not supposed to change anything.
Read on »Unidentified man shoots at an asylum reception center in Kouvola, Finland
An unidentified man who was driving a dark-colored station wagon hot at the Rekola asylum reception center in Kouvola, located in southeastern Finland, according to YLE. It is the third time since the asylum reception center has been attacked. In 2015, a man attempted to burn the reception center. The suspect was apprehended and given a
Read on »Seven months and no justice yet after a Kenyan woman was racially insulted and splashed by a bucket of water
Remember when a Kenyan woman was sitting outside her home in the Helsinki neighborhood of Helsinki one Sunday afternoon on May 22 and a white Finnish woman splashed a bucket of water on her, her children and their friends after shouting racist insults? Well, nothing has happened since then even if Ruth Waweru-Folabit pressed charges against the woman and complained to the non-discrimination ombudsman seven months ago.
Read on »Two stories, two versions about an incident involving asylum seekers in Finland
Two stories, two versions. One by Migrant Tales where asylum seekers allege that a white Finnish driver in a GMC SUV tried to hit them and another one in Mikkeli-based Länsi Savo where the police suspect a traffic dispute that led to an argument where one asylum seeker got hit in the head.
Read on »Iraqi asylum seeker allegedly attacked by four Finns at the Kontula shopping center of Eastern Helsinki
Migrant Tales understands that a young Iraqi asylum seeker was allegedly attacked from behind by two men and two women at about 2am on Sunday at the Kontula shopping center of Eastern Helsinki. The young man, who was found unconscious by the police, was taken to a hospital but released later. “The asylum seeker was
Read on »What happened at the Itäkeskus shopping center on Sunday?
It appears that there is no evidence to support that a Muslim woman was allegedly attacked by 10 people at the Itäkeskus shopping center of Eastern Helsinki, according to Helsingin Sanomat. This is great news since the alleged victim is safe and sound.
Read on »White Finns attack a pregnant Muslim woman at the Itäkeskus shopping center
A Muslim woman who was four-months pregnant was attacked Sunday by around ten white Finns at the Itäkeskus shopping center located in Eastern Helsinki, reports Helsingin Sanomat.
Read on »Forssa, Finland: A hotbed of racist behavior where words turn into bullets
The southwestern town of Forssa is located 116km from Helsinki. A mass fight took place there on Tuesday between white Finns and asylum seekers, according to YLE News.
Read on »Denying the rise of racism and fascism in Finland
Even if Finland denies that it has a serious racism and fascism problem, the country cannot go forward and the situation for migrants and minorities in Finland will get worse until we get a grip of these social issues.
Read on »How hate crime goes unreported in Finland
The European Network Against Racism (ENAR), an anti-racism NGO, reported the previous week that there were in 2013 a total of 47,210 racist crimes reported by NGOs throughout Europe. It claimed that those reported cases were only the tip of the iceberg of all recorded hate crimes. Migrant Tales was informed recently about a case in Helsinki of
Read on »ENAR: Racist crime continues to be a significant problem in all European countries
There were in the European Union in 2013 a total of 47,210 racist crimes, according to a first-ever report that doesn’t use official sources but those provided by NGOs, according to the European Network Against Racism (ENAR). The anti-racism Brussels-based NGO states that the amount of officially recorded racist crimes is only the tip of the
Read on »Migrant Tales Literary: Peep show
Leo Honka Folks! We’re not going to visit a traditional peep show with women or men but one where all your bigotry, hate, and racism undress before you. Social media peep show sites like Hommaforum* are such places. People visit them anonymously and get all excited by their lewd thoughts. They too undress but with
Read on »Hate crimes in 2013 are up by 13.9% in Finland but who cares?
Suspected hate crimes in 2013 rose by 13.9% to 833 cases compared with 732 in the previous year, according to the Police College of Finland. While one suspected hate crime is too many, how should we interpret these figures? What do they reflect? Do they reveal that there are high or low hate crime levels
Read on »Zuzeeko’s blog: Minorities in Finland face unequal treatment, even in death
Zuzeeko Tegha Abeng* Family murders are common in Finland and whenever they happen the media mentions the nationality or origin of the perpetrator and the victim. But the origin of the most recent victim of Finland’s string of disturbing family murders was kept under wraps. Some people, including me wonder why. On 1 September 2013,
Read on »Internal security secretariat head: Many racist crimes go unreported in Finland
Some migrants may not report a racist crime in Finland because of mistrust of the police, poor Finnish-language skills and ignorance of one’s rights, according to Tarja Mankkinen, director of the ministry of the interior’s internal security secretariat. The Police College of Finland reported 918 suspected hate crimes in 2011, which is a 7% rise from
Read on »Confessions of a recovering racist
Society has achieved at least one significant victory in the fight against racism – it has succeeded in making open racism a dirty concept. The power of stigma that worked so effectively to reinforce racism has been harnessed to turn the tide against open discrimination – at least in polite society. Today, in most public
Read on »Why we must challenge anti-immigration parties across Europe
A political party that bases its popularity on anti-immigration and populist rhetoric is like playing a risky political game of Russian roulette. The game continues until the only bullet in the revolver goes off in your head. Higher bets are placed each time that the revolver doesn’t fire: more xenophobia, more hate speech, more racist
Read on »Center Party politician’s home attacked the third time in Helsinki
Abdirahim “Husu” Hussein, a Center Party politician who hosts the Ali and Husu talk show on YLE, found a rude message at 4 am in the front of his apartment building door: a shattered beer bottle. It’s not the first time his family has been targeted in such a manner at their Helsinki home. The
Read on »Assaulted Helsinki, Finland, black bus driver: Immigrants are treated unfairly by the police and law
Ali Dahir, the black bus driver who was assaulted Tuesday in Helsinki by a white Finn, claims that the police and the law treat foreigners differently from Finns. The bus driver, who is a Finnish citizen and a native of Somalia, was attacked while at work and suffered concussions. While the police and government officials
Read on »UPDATE: Black bus driver assaulted in Helsinki
A black bus driver from Somalia was assaulted Tuesday in Helsinki by a white Finn, who apparently didn’t like a black man honking the horn at him. Ali Dahir, the victim who has been given sick leave from work, was hit by the attacker and suffered concussions. “I had to stop at an intersection and
Read on »Migrant Tales Literary: The racist and his rabid dog
By Leo Honka The racist shows off his rabid dog on a short leash footsteps and gleaming eyes speak of satisfaction on the pavement and media attention thanks to his rabid dog. Like flies on flypaper struggling to survive the racist too owns a rabid dog. On a short leash he walks, walks but doesn’t
Read on »Police apprehend suspected attacker of black VR worker of Kajaani, Finland
The police have apprehended the suspect who violently attacked on Tuesday a black train cleaner working for state railways, VR, reports Kainuun Sanomat. The suspect, who is a foreigner, admitted to the police of attacking the VR worker, who has returned home after being operated twice in hospital. Just because a person is a
Read on »Hate crimes in Finland are shameful but reveal our meek response to intolerance
Just like over a year ago, during Black February, when three Muslims died under violent circumstances in a span of about three weeks, Migrant Tales learned of a new tragedy in the city of Kaajani. A black man, who is a train cleaner for the state railways company VR, was violently attacked by two men on
Read on »Foreign train cleaner violently attacked in the Kainuu region of Finland
A black train cleaner working for VR, the state-owned railways company, was violently attacked on Tuesday by two men in the city of Kajaani, located in the region of Kainuu, according to Iltalehti. The wounds the attackers inflicted on the man are so serious that he will be operated. Iltalehti repors that the wife of
Read on »FRA: Hate crime a daily matter in the European Union
Two recent reports published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) confirm that hate crime happens daily throughout the European Union (EU). One of the reports reveals that 32% of Somalis interviewed by the agency that live in Finland reported being victims of hate crimes during the past 12 months. Other countries in
Read on »Race Council Cymru: “Under-reporting” racism in Wales (and Finland)
The Police College of Finland may soon publish its hate crime statistics for 2011. Considering that hate crimes reported to the police in 2010 fell by 15% to 860 versus 1,007 cases from the previous year, one could ask how reliable such statistics are. Do they reveal hate crime cases in Finland or police attitudes
Read on »How rape statistics reveal a serious problem: racism and prejudice
You know there is something fishy whenever any person starts to use percentages to drive home the point that immigrants are rapists. If anything, rape statistics do reveal a problem: racism and prejudice. One blogger on Uusi Suomi writes: ”In April, Finns were told that men from xxxx are guilty of committing rape alarmingly often.”
Read on »Sweden convicts Peter Mangs for Malmö immigrant murders
A Malmö District Court convicted Peter Mangs, 40, of two counts of murder and four attempted murders, according to the Guardian. The man, who is a Swede of Finnish descent, killed his first victim in 2003 and terrorized Malmö during 2009-10. All of his victims were immigrants. Mangs will undergo psychiatric evaluation before his sentencing
Read on »The Halla-aho scandal raises disturbing questions
Disquieting questions emerge in light of the Jussi Halla-aho scandal: Is pressure on the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP to resign as chairman of the administration committee due to his dismissive reaction to the Supreme Court sentence or because of what he wrote about Muslims and Somalis, which got him in trouble in the first place? When
Read on »Finland’s police service: see no, hear no, speak no hate crimes
Migrant Tales reported since the end of January some gruesome violent crimes against Muslims in Finland with the most recent one happening Wednesday. Two of these led directly to the violent death of a Somali and Moroccan native, both Finnish citizens. None of these were hate crimes, according to the police.
Read on »Update: Older woman assaulted at Myllypuro metro station in Helsinki
Thanks to a tip off, Migrant Tales correctly reported that the older woman that was attacked and beaten Wednesday at Helsinki’s Myllypuro metro station was allegedly by a group of white Finns. The older woman suffered injuries to the face and was taken to hospital by ambulance.
Read on »UPDATE 2: Somali young man leaps to his death in Oulu, Finland
The Oulu police have now admitted as Migrant Tales did first in Finland that the victim who leaped to his death from a sixth floor was a Somali. Kaleva, the Oulu daily, quotes Antti Räsänen of the police stating that “nothing points to racism [hate crime] but we haven’t ruled out that possibility.”
Read on »UPDATE: Somali young man leaps to his death in Oulu, Finland
The cause of the death of a Somali male in Oulu on Tuesday appears to be as Migrant Tales correctly reported a hate crime involving three Finns who entered the man’s home by force and caused him to leap from his sixth-floor apartment balcony. The young man died the same day later in hospital.
Read on »Somali young man leaps to his death in Oulu, Finland
The cause of the death of a Somali male in Oulu on Monday night is still unresolved after he leaped to his death from his sixth-floor apartment balcony. Police have not confirmed the cause of death but neighbors contacted by Migrant Tales claim that the eighteen-year-old was attacked by a group of Finns who had entered his home by force
Read on »Finland also locks up asylum seeker children
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- A child in the Joutseno Immigration Removal Center.
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