Safe Public Transport for all

According to the study, “The Stopped - Ethnic Profiling in Finland”, most brown and black Finns know at least one person close to them who has had such experiences, while the white Finns in the survey had barely heard about the whole thing. This shows unequal treatment and makes it difficult for Finns to understand each other's concerns.

A contemporary public space is meant to be a safe space for the interaction of citizens living across different areas of the city. Public space conditions must therefore be equal and promote social and diverse cohesion. On this, the public transport of the city of Helsinki has completely failed. Spaces for public transit must not become a place for public trials and punishments.

HSL and other public transport providers have switched to digital ticket and payment platforms which means different problem situations for passengers. Many have already, in advance, begun to fear what could happen. Experiences are not isolated incidents but there is a large number of them and they happen all the time.

In public transportation, we become vulnerable to being insulted, beaten, and on top of that we can end up detained in a police cell and get taken to court. All this just because we tried to travel by public transport.

According to videos and case reports released last year, the biggest risk factor is not violent youth gangs or drunk people but security guards themselves. In 2020, social media was filled with victims’ stories.

Elsewhere in the world, similar cases have been responded to with more sensitivity: Managers and the people responsible have been changed and cooperation agreements have been terminated. Staff have also been retrained after unjust events. Victims have also gotten public apologies and their representatives have been invited to participate in future and community working groups. This has not been done in Finland.

Here in Finland, victims are lectured. Their stories have been questioned and doubted despite the video footage. Them and their family members have been taken to court even though they have themselves been the actual victims of unnecessary violence in these situations.

It is difficult to understand how professional, well-trained and adult security guards and law enforcement officers would supposedly not be able to figure out how to deal with these situations without the passenger ending up in handcuffs on the floor.

Especially for people with an African background, brown, racialised, immigrant and other minority groups, the risk of being beaten or having other difficulties when using public transport seems to be many times higher than others.

The threshold for reporting racism is already too high and must not be raised any further. International studies show that Finland is one of the most racist countries in the EU.

As a result of these situations, as well as poor language skills, these situations may be particularly sensitive to the extreme phenomena discussed in this statement.

According to a THL study, most brown and black Finns know at least one person close to them who has had such experiences, while the white Finns in the survey had barely heard about the whole thing. This shows unequal treatment and makes it difficult for Finns to understand each other's concerns. 

This practice thus divides society in two. We challenge all municipal election candidates to also propose changes that will ensure that public transport is truly safe for all in the future.