2013-04-20 USA:n maaraportit ihmisoikeustilanteesta vuonna 2012

[Roope]

John F. Kerry, Secretary of State: Secretary's Preface

2012 Human Rights Reports: Finland

Suomen suurin ihmisoikeusongelma on Yhdysvaltojen näkemyksen mukaan romanien ja muiden etnisten ja kielelllisten vähemmistöjen syrjintä etenkin työelämässä.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY    
The Republic of Finland is a constitutional republic with a directly elected president and a unicameral parliament (Eduskunta). The prime minister heads a six-party coalition government. Municipal elections on October 28, presidential elections on January 22 and February 5, and parliamentary elections in 2011 were free and fair. Security forces reported to civilian authorities.

While serious abuses were rare, observers identified societal discrimination against Roma and members of other ethnic and linguistic minorities, particularly in the area of employment, as the country's most significant human rights problem. Domestic abuse and other violence against women and children were also chronic problems. Although the system for administering justice generally worked well, police at times failed to provide detainees timely access to legal counsel as required by law.

Other human rights problems included alleged bribery and abuse of trust involving elected officials and public statements by some politicians that demeaned ethnic and racial minorities.

The government took steps to prosecute officials suspected of corruption, and there were no reports of impunity during the year.

INTERNET FREEDOM
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet or credible reports that the government monitored e-mail or Internet chat rooms without appropriate legal authority. Approximately 95 percent of the population had access to the Internet.

Courts can fine persons found guilty of inciting racial hatred on the Internet, and during the year there were several reports that individuals incurred fines for publishing and distributing such material via the Internet.

On March 30, the media reported that the Kymenlaakso District Court fined Freddy van Wonterghem, a city councilman in Lappeenranta from the Finns Party, 420 euros ($554) for a racist article published in the online newspaper Uusi Suomi.

On June 8, the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction of Jussi Halla-Aho, a parliamentarian from the Finns Party, for insulting Somalis and defaming Islam in blogs dating from 2008. In addition to levying a fine of 400 euros ($530), the court ordered him to remove the offending material from his blog. While Halla-Aho removed the material, the blog entry contained links to news stories that still contained the offending material. Halla-Aho resigned from the chairmanship of the parliament's Administration Committee, which oversees immigration.

PROTECTION OF REFUGEES
Access to Asylum: The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status, and the government has established a system for providing protection to refugees.

Safe Country of Origin/Transit: The EU's Dublin II Regulation recognizes all EU countries as safe countries of origin and transit. The regulation also authorizes the governments of EU member states to return asylum seekers to the countries where they first entered the EU. Following an ECHR judgment against Greece involving the treatment of asylum seekers, in January 2011 the Finnish Immigration Service temporarily stopped returning asylum seekers to that country.

Refugee Abuse: On May 25, Amnesty International (AI) criticized the government for its asylum procedures. AI expressed concern that many of those being detained were held in police detention facilities, contrary to international standards. In these cases, many were detained in mixed-sex facilities with individuals suspected of crime. Authorities also detained children seeking asylum, including unaccompanied children. AI stated that authorities were unable to provide comprehensive and reliable statistics on the numbers of irregular migrants and asylum seekers detained during the year.

In October the national broadcaster YLE reported that the parliamentary ombudsman reprimanded immigration officials for unnecessarily delayed processing of residence applications made on the grounds of family ties. The ombudsman claimed that the Finnish Immigration Service's processing times for residence permits during the year were well in excess of the legal stipulation of nine months.

Durable Solutions: Parliament annually sets a quota for the number of refugees that may be admitted to the country. The government decides on the allocation of the quota. As in previous years, the quota was 750 persons.

The government assisted in the safe, voluntary return of refugees to their homes. A project launched in 2010 by the International Organization for Migration and the Finnish Immigration Service facilitated more than 288 safe returns from January to October and a total of 825 returns since the beginning of the project.

Temporary Protection: Between January and November the government provided subsidiary or humanitarian protection to 688 individuals who might not qualify as refugees.

Elections and Political Participation
Recent Elections: On February 5, voters elected the center-right National Coalition Party's candidate, Sauli Niinisto, as the country's president in the runoff round of the election against Green League candidate Pekka Haavisto. In the first round of elections on January 22, two female and five male candidates representing other political parties campaigned. Observers considered the presidential elections as well as the most recent parliamentary elections in April 2011free and fair.

Participation of Women and Minorities: As a result of the April 2011 elections, 85 women entered the 200-seat parliament and nine women took portfolios in the 19-member Council of State (cabinet). The president of the Supreme Court was a woman. Four of the eight parties in parliament went into the election campaign with female leaders. Women were in the majority in two parliamentary groups: the Social Democratic Party (27 women and 15 men) and the Swedish People's Party (five women and four men).

There were 10 members of minority groups in parliament and two in the cabinet. Jani Toivola, a Kenyan-Finn from the Green League, became the first member of a racial minority to win a parliamentary seat, as well as one of the few openly gay members of parliament. The autonomous region of the Aland Islands elects one representative to the national parliament and has its own parliament. The indigenous Sami minority enjoys semiautonomous status and has its own parliament as well as full representation as citizens in the national parliament; however, no Sami were members of the national parliament.

CORRUPTION AND LACK OF TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT   
The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption, and the government generally implemented these laws effectively.

On April 18, the Helsinki District Court sentenced Ilkka Kanerva, a National Coalition Party member of parliament and former foreign minister, to a 15-month suspended sentence for bribery. The court found that property developers gave Kanerva's campaign donations and other support totaling more than 50,000 euros ($66,000) to influence his approval of their development plans in his capacity as chairman of the Board of the Regional Council of Southwest Finland, a regional planning authority. Kanerva resigned from the planning authority but continued to serve in parliament and the municipal government of Turku. Kanerva appealed the ruling.

Nine persons, including Center Party member of parliament Antti Kaikkonen and Jukka Vihriala, a former Center Party member of parliament and head of the state-run Slot Machine Association (RAY), faced corruption charges related to donations made by the Youth Foundation, a nonprofit housing organization, in a continuing trial that began on January 15. Authorities accused Kaikkonen, a former chairman of the board of the Youth Foundation, and other board members of making illegal political campaign contributions of 90,000 euros ($119,000) between 1998 and 2009. The bribery charges related to Youth Foundation funds used to purchase works of art from a political action group supporting Vihriala, who was also the chairman of the board of the RAY. The foundation also financed travel for Vihriala. As chair of the RAY, Vihriala was directly involved in decisions on the distribution of state funding for the Youth Foundation.

By law income and asset information from all tax forms of all citizens, including public officials, must be made public each year. The Office of the Chancellor of Justice oversees government activities and prosecutes cases of possible corruption.

The law provides for public access to government information, with the exception of national security information and documents covered by privacy laws, and the government provided such access in practice.

Anti-Semitism
According to Statistics Finland, the country's Jewish community numbered approximately 1,500. The largest Jewish community (in Helsinki) consisted of 1,150 members. In September the magazine Kaleva reported that the Central Council of the Jewish Community asked the police to investigate an anti-Semitic article that originated in Argentina and appeared in a free supermarket newspaper published by Magneettimedia, a private advertising firm. The publication reached approximately 300,000 persons. National broadcaster YLE reported that the matter was being investigated by police and the prosecutor general at year's end.

On March 11, Helena Eronen, an assistant to Finns Party parliamentarian James Hirvisaari, wrote in a blog that foreigners and other minorities should wear visible armbands so that police could more easily indentify different minority groups. The blog entry was in response to wider public debate over personal searches conducted by police. Hirvisaari refused to fire Eronen, stating that the blog entry was satire and not a real proposal. In response, the Finns Party parliamentary group temporarily suspended Hirvisaari from the parliamentary caucus. On August 13, Eronen announced her resignation.

The Ministry of Education continued to integrate tolerance and antibias courses and material into the public-school curriculum. Students begin studying the Holocaust and the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in the eighth grade.

National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
There was some societal tension between ethnic Finns and minority groups, and there were reports of racist or xenophobic incidents. On September 25, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights reported, "Denigrating and degrading statements made by several populist politicians have also amounted to incitement to hatred against immigrant groups."

On December 13, the Northern-Savo District Court found a 27-year-old man guilty of incitement of hatred against immigrant groups. In April the man wrote in a public Internet discussion forum that he wanted to kill immigrants. The court fined him 120 euros ($160).

In 2011 the police filed 918 reports of suspected hate crime cases, a 7 percent increase compared with the previous year. The majority of the cases (86 percent) were racist incidents ; 6.6 percent were motivated by the victim's religious background; 4.6 percent by sexual orientation; and 2.6 percent by disability. Somalis experienced the highest frequency of racially motivated crimes among foreign citizens resident in the country. The law does not have a specific category for "race-related crimes" or "hate crimes." However, racism as a motive or party to another motive to any other criminal act is a cause for aggravating the sentence.

According to the minority ombudsman, discrimination against the country's approximately 10,000-12,000 Roma extended to all areas of life, resulting in their effective exclusion from society. Groups of Roma have lived in the country for centuries, and Roma are classified as a "traditional ethnic minority" in the ombudsman's report. The Romani minority was the most frequent target of racially motivated discrimination, followed by Russian-speakers, Somalis, and Sami. Ethnic Finns were also occasionally victims of racially motivated crimes for associating with members of minority communities.

A significant influx of adult Romani beggars from Romania to Helsinki and other large cities started in 2007 after Romania joined the EU. The number of beggars varied significantly during the year, ranging from approximately 200-300 during the summer months to only a few dozen during the winter. Helsinki city officials believed that word had spread through the itinerant Romani community that winter conditions in the country are challenging.

Social workers launched an information campaign to educate Roma arriving in the country on local child welfare laws. Helsinki city officials and the Deaconess Institute distributed leaflets in English and Romanian highlighting Finnish laws, including those forbidding children from sleeping in cars or on the street. During the summer a Romanian police officer assisted Finnish police in dealing with problems involving the Romanian Romani community.

At the end of 2011, 58,300 Russian-speakers lived in the country, principally in Helsinki and areas along the Russian border. They were by far the largest minority not speaking Finnish or Swedish, the country's two official languages. The Finnish Union of Russian-Speaking Associations stated that Russian-speakers in the country risked being left in "an information vacuum" due to the lack of materials in their language.

According to a study by the Ministry of Economy and Employment, ethnic minorities faced discrimination at the recruitment stage in the labor market. Other grounds, such as age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and opinion, did not lead to labor discrimination as frequently as ethnicity, nationality, and language. Authorities estimated that the frequency of ethnic discrimination was more than three times higher than gender discrimination. A study in May cited by the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner found that job seekers with Russian names had to send twice as many applications as those with Finnish names in order to receive an invitation for a job interview. Earlier studies indicated that Somalis/Sub-Saharan Africans and Arabs perceived the most discrimination both in recruitment and at the work place, while Estonians and Ingrian-Finns reported only slight discrimination in all categories. According to research reported by the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner on September 25, 41.2 percent of young Somalis in the country did not go to school or work, compared with approximately 5 percent of young persons in the majority population who were considered marginalized.

The government strongly encouraged tolerance and respect for minority groups and sought to address racial discrimination. All government ministries included antiracism provisions in their educational information, personnel policy, and training programs. The government monitored the treatment of national, racial, and ethnic minorities by police, border guards, and teachers. The government's minority ombudsman monitored and assisted victims of discrimination. The ombudsman for minorities supervised compliance with the prohibition of ethnic discrimination.

In 2011, the most recent year for which data was available, the ombudsman for minorities processed 830 cases of discrimination. Roma remained the largest ethnic group contacting the ombudsman for minorities. As in earlier years, the majority of Romani clients contacted the office about housing problems. The second-largest group to contact the ombudsman for minorities was Russian-speakers.

Societal Abuses, Discrimination, and Acts of Violence Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics. The government generally respected these rights, and law enforcement authorities investigated and punished violations.

On July 19, in the city of Oulu, local Helsinki politician Dan Koivulaakso was attacked with pepper spray while delivering a speech at a gay pride festival. Police arrested a suspect on October 10 and were investigating the case as battery and an attack on political freedom.

On August 17, the media reported that police had begun a criminal preinvestigation against Finns Party member of parliament James Hirvisaari for hate speech in which he compared homosexuality to mental retardation. On September 13, Deputy General Prosecutor Jorma Kalske closed the pretrial investigations regarding the case.

On May 4, the Helsinki appeals court confirmed suspended four-month sentences for assault, breach of political freedom, and weapons possession for three young men who attacked the 2010 Helsinki Pride parade.

[Juffe]

Mihinköhän tuolla kielellisten vähemmistöjen syrjinnällä mahdetaan viitata? Siihen, että kielitaito vaikuttaa työllistymiseen? Vai johonkin muuhun?

Eikö sitten Yhdysvalloissa englannin osaamattomuus vaikuta työllistymiseen??

[Juffe]

On March 11, Helena Eronen, an assistant to Finns Party parliamentarian James Hirvisaari, wrote in a blog that foreigners and other minorities should wear visible armbands so that police could more easily indentify different minority groups. The blog entry was in response to wider public debate over personal searches conducted by police. Hirvisaari refused to fire Eronen, stating that the blog entry was satire and not a real proposal. In response, the Finns Party parliamentary group temporarily suspended Hirvisaari from the parliamentary caucus. On August 13, Eronen announced her resignation.

Auugh! Kiitos, Turun Sanomat.

[kolki]

Vaikuttaa, että iso osa tiedoista on mediasta, eli ei välttämättä kovin luotettavia tietoja. Esim. Erosen tapaus on antisemitismiosassa.

[Roope]

Vaikuttaa, että iso osa tiedoista on mediasta, eli ei välttämättä kovin luotettavia tietoja. Esim. Erosen tapaus on antisemitismiosassa.

Luultavasti, koska tulkinnat tapahtuneesta ovat välillä hieman erikoisia. Lähteitä ei kerrota, mutta arvelen raportin perustuvan lisäksi ainakin vähemmistövaltuutetun haastatteluun.