Public statement on inadequate Finnish law on racism
Recently the EU Commission sent a formal notice recognizing Finland, amongst other countries, as lacking in accurately implementing EU regulations meant to combat racism and xenophobia in domestic criminal law, and it cites legislation not being sufficiently clear in this area.
February infringements package: key decisions (europa.eu)
Although Finnish law already has clauses for criminalizing hate-speech in the form of inciting violence based on race, religion, sexual orientation etc. (although far too rarely acted upon), still, this law is not adequate in relation to discrimination in general and the acts of racism, xenophobia and hate speech in particular.
In addition to that, Finnish legislation fails to criminalize holocaust denial and trivializing crimes against humanity, and also fails to fully recognise hate-speech as a crime.
As a result, even if the victim reports a racist offense or implies racist motivation in the particular action, the law does not recognize this racism as a crime and there is also no full definition of racism in Finnish law, so it is essentially impossible to prosecute on the basis of racism or xenophobia.
We demand from the responsible official bodies to, within the shortest possible time, with close involvement of the representatives of the communities to whom the issue is of concern and their organizations, come up with the Action plan that will ensure fast, thorough and substantial addressing of this issue.
The action plan must contain
Commitment to drafting the new legislation that will criminalize hate speech and acts of racist and xenophobic violence in collaboration with the stakeholders, accompanied with the package of measures that will ensure implementation without delay. The plan must provide a detailed description of and a timeframe for the process of drafting the legislation as well as of the framework that will ensure meaningful participation of the stakeholders.
Commitment to strengthening the support to non-governmental organizations that are working against racism in public society and utilize their expertise in how this work against racism is possible; detailed plan, timeline for implementation, and the budget.
Commitment to the comprehensive education on structural racism for all governing structures from the police to the civil servants, including a detailed plan, the timeline and the budget.
In 2018 Finland was, according to an international research paper, found to be the most racist country of the 12 EU countries that were studied.
None of us is safe until all of us are safe!
