City Councillor Jussi Halla-Aho of the True Finns Party has been found guilty of defamation of religion by the Helsinki District Court. He was ordered to pay a fine of 330 euros. However, the court dismissed a charge of inciting hatred against an ethnic group.

330 euros!? LOL!! Glad to know that “defamation of religion” brings on the same punishment as urinating in public. Whichever Finnish politicians created the laws on defamation of religion should be charged with defamation of religion, cause they’re obviously mocking all religious people with these joke punishments.

The next time Halla-Aho wants to defame religion, he’ll be forced to think, “Would I rather write crazy shit and get fined…or spend that same money on a PlaySation3 ?? Hmmm…” Halla-Aho couldn’t have bought such great publicity for 330e – next stop Parliament.

The prosecutor said Halla-Aho’s writings insulted Muslims residing in Finland and endangered religious peace.

Over the weekend I saw the new Finnish film, “Kielletty Hedelmä” (Forbidden Fruit). It basically describes how archaic and abusive Finland’s religious, “Laestadian“, sect are. They brainwash their children, ostracize those who question them, banish those who don’t agree, and tell their kids they’re spending eternity in hell. It’s mental rape.

As true and unsettling as the film was, its producers ‘defamed’, ‘offended’, and ‘insulted’ their religion. The film has ‘endangered religious peace’ and ‘incited racial hatred’, cause after watching, I was about to drive up to Nowheremäki and smack the bejesus out of them for what they do to innocent children.

I fear the Laestadians may force the authorities to go after the film’s producers next! …Oops, the Laestadians aren’t allowed to watch movies, so I guess they’ll never know… LOL!!

The controversial blogger and Helsinki councilman Dr. Jussi Halla-aho recieved today a conviction of “breaching the sanctity of religion” i.e. blasphemy. He was sentenced by the Helsinki district court to pay 30 day fines amounting to 330 euros. Dr. Halla-aho has stated he will appeal on the verdict.

Dr. Halla-aho’s blog “Scripta – writings from the sinking west” came under scrutiny during his campaign for Helsinki city council as a nonaligned candidate on the True Finns ticket. Especially the women’s organization of the Green party took offence of his acerbic writings of immigration and multiculturalism. However bad taste is not a crime, which the Green Women found out trying in vain to destabilize Halla-ahos candidacy with frivolous police investigations.

The police took Halla-ahos blog under investigation after the state prosecutors office took interest in the case and the State Prosecutor Jorma Kalske raised two charges, one of “breaching the sanctity of religion” and another one “inciting hatered against a population group” of one blog entry appropriately named “A couple of baits for Mika Illman” (Mika Illman being the state prosecutor who had charged a few people over similar cases perviously). Halla-aho has stated he wanted to show the double standards regarding the treatment of different groups by the courts.

Surprisingly the charge on blasphemy stuck, even though that very law had been regarded as a dead letter since the 1960’s. According to the court “facts or logic do not have significance in religious discussion”. Fine by me, I’ll proclaim Charlie Manson as God and anyone claiming he is a deranged hippie will be charged, Helter Skelter.

Wow! From YLE…

Finland has received more judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights than the rest of the Nordic countries together over the past 15 years.

According to the newspaper Turun Sanomat, Finland has received a total of 75 binding decisions, of which all but one have been made over the past 15 years.

Sweden, for example, has received a total of 22 court judgments, Norway 19, Denmark 9 and Iceland just one.

In April, the European Court of Human Rights reprimanded Finland over the eight-year long case of a Helsinki man. The court intends to hear nine Finnish cases concerning questions of freedom of speech.

Finland has, so far, lost three-quarters of its cases before the court.

Well we know that basic freedom of speech is often lacking in this country. Here’s some other human rights concerns in Finland, from Wikipedia…

1. Conscientious objectors to both military and civilian service are jailed for six months. There are about 10-20[citation needed] conscientious objectors every year. Most are in minimum security, open facilities, and objecting is not entered on criminal records.
2. Charges of racist/xenophobic treatment of ethnic minorities by officials, and that refugees are hand-picked by the Ministry of the Interior on basis of country of origin citing “security reasons”.[citation needed]
3. A case in which agitated asylum seekers were drugged, for deportation.[citation needed]
4. Unfair court action in the light of the verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights.[citation needed]

* Handling time has been unacceptably long particularly in civil cases or criminal court cases relating to bankruptcy, e.g. eight years in the court of first instance and 12 years in total

I don’t know how much the readers follow the Finnish politics and issues, but so far it seems that the old game of “broken telephone” gets even worse when it is transferred from the reality into a newspaper with a political slant, regurgitated, edited and then translated into a foreign language. One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain wrote of this in his short story “Running for Governor” already in 1870, and nothing much has changed since. So you may see headlines of “Finnish politician sued for blasphemy” but I bet the articles are more or less confusing the issues.

There is no confusion that we still retain a paragraph in the Penal Code on “blasphemy”, actually Ch.17 Par. 11: “Breach of the sanctity of religion “(563/1998). Which enables the courts to sentence people on the grounds of “ridiculing what others regard as holy”. Of course in modern times you can laugh at Jesus and God, but can you laugh at Mohammad?

Double standards if you can’t laugh at both equally – and Finland is a land of equality, isn’t it? Then again theres a few other vague subjective laws in the Penal Code that require only that you be accused of them. You don’t have to find a victim for these crimes which makes them perfect to be used in silencing people. There is a law Ch.11 Par8 – “Ethnic agitation” (578/1995) that says “A person who spreads statements or other information among the public where a certain race, a national, ethnic or religious group or a comparable group is threatened, defamed or insulted shall be sentenced for ethnic agitation to a fine or to imprisonment for at most two years.” Which of course is a noble law. Again the question is, are all races, national, ethnic or religious groups or comparable groups equal before the law? For example, can you say that Finns are prone to drunken killing sprees? So if you can say that, can you say that X are prone to robbing passersby and leeching off welfare?

The vocal (or can you say vocal of someone who writes but doesn’t speak much) anti-multiculturalism blogger and aspiring politician Jussi Halla-aho got into the eye of a shitstorm running for the Helsinki city council (he is now among other things supervising the wanking baboons and lethally biting camels in the board of the Korkeasaari Zoo) and now as a result he’s facing court of his blogpost he made in 2006 that questioned the above equality issues. It is quite important to note that the Green Women had no case and no crime to have investigated – not liking someones opinions isn’t enough grounds.

The text “A few baits for Mika Illman” (the state prosecutor) was in fact the *only* one the prosecutor took upon himself to draw charges upon. Can you call that a hook-line-sinker?

On the one hand I find the whole case totally preposterous, as it clearly has a political agenda. Then again “publishing the Mohammad cartoons” issue has been a watershed so the blasphemy part might prove interesting. A part of me though wants Halla-aho to be sentenced for the agitation, so I can sue the ass off anyone claiming Finland is a cold soggy dark place with drunk wifebeaters who have a difficult language.

A modern day farce

Politicians in all countries seem to be able to start a leapfrog competition out of the blue. One minor brainfart and soon frogs start leaping out of politicians’ mouths left right and centre, only its blogs that are the culprits. And the more the politicians explain what they really meant the worse it gets. Just like the Watergate building break-in was a small article in the back pages the continuous denial of involvement only poured more and more gasoline into the fires and we all know what that ended up with. “I am not a crook.” As I said a while back Finnish politics has not been this much fun to follow since the Yoga Fliers ran for Parliament.

There isn’t exactly one thing that alone would be such a disaster, but the total of the past week is a chain of events best described as political correctness, stupidity and vicious sarcasm gone mad over equality, tolerance, freedom of speech and political liberties.

The storm in the Duck Pond

Four young men in Espoo were thrown in jail because speaking Swedish to the police, the tablods ripped. Not caring to mention the youth were in a house, at an 18-year ods birthday party, with about 50 other people, and rather were arrested for speaking up at the police, which gets you in jail for sure in these parts. The Sami council objected the use of “Two Language One Nation” slogan as the Sami are a recognized minority language. Before the Swedish Folk Party had time to get all indignant they got a massive wedgie when the aide of the Minister of Culture, Sports and Equality , the SFP chair,Stefan Wallin, state secretary Stefan Johansson went and groped two women at the Swedish Embassy’s reception on the Swedish Day. He promptly resigned. Of course the Fashion Police Resident Lenita Airisto went ahead and derided “Finnish Men” who are always drunk, cannot dress, act nor even speak proper, and was given a wee bit of a retort for claiming Finns speak “Monkey English”. Despite the short burst the whole issue might have been forgotten unless the SFP crone Maria Björnberg-Enckell elected to the Helsinki Council hadn’t written in her blog a pretty much “better people” comment to the lines that the reason the aide misbehaved was due to him being born in Korppoo (i.e. small hick town) and being overwhelmed being exposed to the cultured society such as the Swedish Embassy… we’re waiting for the duelling banjos.

The war between Green Women and Dr. Evil

A Finnish-language blog called “Scripta” authored by the linguist Dr. Jussi Halla-aho was a catalyst for the mayhem that followed. He has written for some five years very acerbic essays opposing the joys of multiculturalism. Lets say like Voltaire, his sharp tongue and acrid wit belie his seriousness of intent. The “official truth” in Finland has been promoting multiculturalism. However the multiculturalism they have elsewhere in Europe doesn’t always match with the noble aims. And while people have started questioning the policies almost any objections have been slammed down by the racist card. No debate against the “official truth” and no veering from the idealistic “chosen path”. But in the internet blogs and websites have sprung up though mainly then concentrating on the failures and ment to be offensive. Denying a debate is never a good idea if you wish to keep a consensus.

When the “True Finns” had made their landslide victory two weeks ago Dr. Halla-aho running as an independent predicted “it only starts now”. And he was correct, the initial shock and awe was replaced by pulling out the racist card and dismissing the True Finns as right-wing racists as some of the people elected were also members of the Suomen Sisu nationalist movement. The Minister of Justice being grilled of the fiasco regarding the electronic voting blunder was quick to make a statement she later said was misquoted that due to the win over the True Finns the Councils must receive training over tolerance.

As the True Finns were so morally objectionable the press and media had a field day taking quotes from here and there and churning out statements of how wicked the True Finns were and how the nation had “voted wrong”. A television talk-show had a field day over quotes from Dr.Halla-aho’s blog. However they forgot that they could not fool the people as the original texts were in the internet and the discussions flared within a few days so that people who had never heard nor paid any attention went to see for themselves what the uproar was all about.

Meanwhile the Green Women had noticed the vitriolic debate over the slanders over their beloved multiculturalism and picked up a comment in an old post in the blog of Dr Halla-Aho. Called “Multiculturalism and Women” (EDIT: Translation of the original article from another blog) the entry was regarding some rapes in 2006 when Helsinki rape statistics had surged and he had written, in an entry he said could have been better:

“The number of rapes will increase in any case. Therefore, as more and more women will undoubtedly get raped, I sincerely hope that at least the right women, the green-leftist reformers and their voters, will find themselves in the clutches of the rapists, who randomly select their victims. Rather them than anyone else. With people like that nothing else works, except when their own multiculturalist views turn against them.” (translation from the HS Int’Ed)

Which the Green Women obviously got extremely upset about and demanded a criminal report being filed as the entry “clearly promotes rape”. Nevermind the Greens should be very quiet about digging up old statements as their philosopher Pentti Linkola had openly written that the managers of industry should be executed among some other direct action pamphlets. The discussion over the issue is about the equivalent of Verdun in the net as now every assclown in the market is trying their best to fuel the flames.

2084

The unfortunate school shootings the past two years had started the government pondering over the control of the internet, and it was the consensus that as the internet is evil it must be controlled to save the youth.  The police reported in a brief that they had been monitoring the internet prevented a number of school attacks and “sent people for treatment”.

Was it not in the DDR and the good old USSR the dissidents got sent to the mental asylum?  So who says only the youth need to be saved. Also the immigrants must be saved from these wicked racists questioning multiculturalism. And while we are at it, why not save the poor politicians. After all several politicians had had to close commenting on their blogs because the public wasn’t understanding their best interests but were being all mean. Does this mean in a few years then anyone opposing the “official truth” and “chosen path” – off to the asylum with you? By 2084 we should have black helicopters and “thought police” as we already have political correctness,  email monitoring and foundations for a Ministry of Truth.

The chair of the “The Council for Mass Media in Finland” made a speech at the 40th anniversary of the council mentioning about curtailing the internet and subjecting it to the Council for Mass Media due to and other nice ideas. The local chief editor of the Hustler magazine went Larry Flynt on him. A complaint with the Council for Mass Media over the statement of the chair of the Council for Mass Media as he had mentioned pornography as one of the vile and wicked things that ought to be censored from the internet.

The fat lady sings in the end

Interestingly, the Ombudsman for Minorities has taken a pretty neutral stance on the whole issue. While the demonization of the True Finns was at its fashion stage she kept her cool not joining the bandwagon. But it may be she is an old fox – while a few years back she was smothering the discussion – any discussion – portraying the Finnish immigration policy in a bad light, she has now said there should be an open debate without “borderline opinions” rather finding a consensus. Oh, and why is the Minority Ombudsman careful of not stepping into the quagmire? Well, after all she is the human rights lawyer who was instrumental in importing the Somali refugees from the USSR in 1990. I guess it was a well played card to gain a seat in a shelter job, after all we wouldn’t need a Minority Ombudsman to deal with the troubles if we wouldn’t have troubled minorities needing an ombudsman.

The big mainstream political parties have also come forth stating that there needs to be an open discussion and tackling the problems. Now I wonder why you require 5 years of offensive blog posts and diarrea hitting the fan before you can have the sensible people actually take a stand and agree to disagree? Well, its better late than never but this discussion really should have taken place 10 if not 20 years ago. And hopefully – finally – at last they will not only start organizing the Finnish classes properly but implement an English user interface to the MOL job search engine. Can’t expect bloody miracles in a day.

Curtain and applauses.

Probably the heated debate and flamewars will continue, but hopefully the sensible brigade will take over once the intolerance of the tolerants has burned off.

After all, if you demand tolerance you may not yourself be intolerant.

I always *love* it when Finland gets into international news. Well, this time over the issue was boiling hot domestically and no wonder. The HS international Edition basic description of the events. Basically, a new editor-in-chief Johanna Korhonen, was hired to the Eastern Lapland regional newspaper Lapin Kansa which is published by a big Finnish publishing house Alma Media. And she was fired before she started in her job the reason being given there was a “lack of trust”   Well, the lady in question, who has been among other things the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the Finnish Union of Journalists cried “foul” and stated in a press release she got sacked because she is living in a registered partnership with a woman.  The CEO of Alma Media Kai Telanne stated that the reason of course is not that, nothing discriminatory etcetera, but the fact that her partner is active in municipal politics while the editor should be politically nonaligned and the CEO said she had been fired for lying in her job interview, and she is just using the lesbian card.

And everybody thought in the traditional Finnish manner the issue would be brushed under the carpet.

Oops, not quite so… today had the Alma Media board of directors publishing a very curt statement of how they stand behind the CEO and do not want to discuss issues “that do not belong in the public”. Laughing my ass off as Alma Media publishes the worst scandal tabloid Iltalehti…

So what is the opinion – the current editor-in-chief of Lapin Kansa stated that an “while nobody asks what people do in their private lives as long as they keep int the closet an openly gay person would find it difficult to act as the editor-in-chief as the newspaper represents the region”.  Well, the region represented nor the newspaper doesn’t wish to be labelled as a redneck bible-belt hickdom it seems. The editors of the Lapin Kansa newspaper have demanded the CEO of Alma Media quits and is removed from the board of Lapin Kansa, The Lapland University’s women studies researchers has started rallying a boycott against Alma Media and its been said people have been canceling their subscriptions. The opinion is still out whether what Korhonen alleges is true – if it is then this is one of the most blatant discrimination cases to pop up.

Legal experts and journalists have come forth stating that personal issues should not be taken up in job interviews, and that as each person is responsible for themselves it is unfair to have some persons job depending on their spouses political activity. The government has stated that the issue should be investigated thoroughly – there was a debate but the government wanted facts as the situation is unclear. Meanwhile the biggest shareholder, a private investor stated that the “publicity is good” and that Alma Media stocks are on the rise. The Nordic newspapers also picked up on the story, especially the Danes as they have also a holding in Alma Media.

Yay! Publicity!  It seems that anything that is said or done in this case will cause another crap sandwich to appear in the lunchbox.

EDIT: 3.10 update HS International Edition of the new developments

Are graffitis art or vandalism?

The question has been debated in Helsinki as in many other cities. Some ten years ago the city adopted a policy banning any kind of graffiti be it murals or tags and started a no-tolerance policy so that most graffiti is cleaned the same day. They were joined by the public transport providers – VR trains were washed the same day they got painted. A lot of guards were also employed – and if youare caught the financial punishmentsare in the tens of thousands – compare this with the woman who got a hysteroctomy due to misfiled lab test and was compensated 2000 euros – she’d gotten more money if the doctor had a felt tip pen and signed her…

I have a number of photos of graffiti in Paris I took on my trip in May. I travelled from a banlieu to the centre and just took photos of the sometimes quite artistic pieces. Coming back to Helsinki I “noticed” that really the “no tags” policy has made any graffiti – even the artful pieces – just nonexistant. Oh well, the young peoples opinions are definitely not as divided on the issue, there was a counter-demonstration to the anti-graffiti movement’s theme day meeting, and the police was not amused. I guess they were practicing for the riots when the HEX collapses and the Espoo yuppies demonstrate for cheap gas. Another policy being implemented in the city is a definitely more stringent policy against demonstrations.

Meanwhile fear and loathing in the Helsinki City continues while the different city deparments are in each others’ throats over a proposal for a “legal graffiti” area. The situation has escalated into such hostility, a few city council members were denied entry to the city-organized 10-year anniversary of the anti-graffiti campaign. Which bickering really does seem quite silly. I wonder if the upcoming elections will provide the city with new brains.

I can understand both sides’ arguments, but really I don’t have any strong opinions either for or against the issue. On the one hand I do get annoyed some kids scribbled four-letter words in our freshly painted staircase – but then again some of the graffiti I managed to get pictures of in Paris, and murals all over the world do have something else in them than just vandalism.

Cliff notes: overkill over sprayed paint

The YLE scandal investigative journalism programme MOT broadcasted last week has caused diplomatic strain between Finland and Slovenia, both small EU countries whose populations probably never much were aware of each others existence. The MOT programme revealed the Finnish defence contractor Patria of paying bribes to gain a lucrative deal on ATV’s for the Slovenian armed forces. The police investigation on the case along with an investigation of a previous deal of howitzers to Egypt had started in May, and the CEO of Patria had stood down from his position. Patrias deals before such as that with Poland also raised some questions but no investigations were started. As the Finnish NBI investigations are noted for their rapidity, the case is expected to go to the prosecutor in October and a possible court case to take place sometime next year.

Meanwhile in Slovenia the MOT programme caused an uproar, as the programme suggests that on the receiving end of the bribes was the sitting prime minister Janez Janša, who is along with his party just preparing for a tight parliamentary election. The Slovenian government even produced two diplomatic notes over the MOT programme to the Finnish government demanding proof of the accusations. Despite both YLE and Patria are to some extent government-owned, the Finnish government said that they can not much do anything about the situation at present. Janša has denied any bribery even been suggested to him by Patria, though he said the other party in the tender process did as for meetings. Which seems very interesting indeed.

The can of hairy worms the MOT programme opened is actually an old one, but it does seem to squirm vigorously. The contract was signed in December 2006 and was the biggest arms deal in Slovenia so far and thus a huge issue in Slovenia, basically as the other rejected tender was from a Slovenian company later sold to an American conglomerate. Allegations of bribery started escalating in Slovenia, going deep into the country’s leadership, including politicians and senior civil servants so a parliamentary commission of inquiry was established in March 2007 to investigate the tender process relating to the sales contract. From what I understand the Slovenians were manufacturing the Steyr-Puch Pandur I on a licence and the competition was between the Patria AMV, Piranha and Pandur II with obvious logistical benefits. Now the Slovenian officials interviewed in the MOT programme were politicaly opposing the current government, and some had ties with the Slovenian contractor. Sour grapes maybe? Or then maybe not… in any case the election race in Slovenia got a surprisingly well-timed injection of scandal.

Cliff notes: Lord of War

There is an old saying: “The manure pile won’t stink unless you go poking it.” and it seems there is nothing better to do than go poking during the summer. In the beginning of the summer there were some remarks made of doping in Finland, and as a few former skiers denied vehemently the use EPO-hormones or any knowledge of blood-doping – last week the ex-coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö came forward making a number of statements implying that the Finnish Skiing Association wasn’t as clean as they presented themselves during the 2001 Lahti Hemohes scandal. And his stories have been corroborated by others, so the story is opening up daily. As the Finnish News Agency chief editor and reporter were convicted of libel in 1999 due to claims of doping that were at the time “unfounded”, the NBI has reopened the investigation. Better late than never I guess.

Another case not as ancient re-surfacing is the infamous Sonera-book which the supreme court returned to the assizes overturning the inadmissibility of evidence. Now the public opinion on the case would be rather than trying to find the author to find “Where disappeared the money of Sonera” as the book title reads. They bought some air in Germany if I recall it correctly.

Maybe I should start a properly to go with the retro feelings and buy a Jopo.