SITA-FINLAND has forwarded the following letter to the Tundra Tabloids by SF activist, WFT, who explains the political situation in Finland in regards to Islam and how it led to the Helsinki city councilman, Jussi Halla-aho being convicted of violating the sanctity of religion. KGS
NOTE: Here is a link to the SITA-FINLAND petition which needs to be copied and then sent by snail mail to the addresses available at the SITA website. More information about SITA actions click here.
Finland moving away from Freedom of Speech
The Finnish court case of Helsinki city councilman Jussi Halla-aho is a very disturbing one, not only because it shows that along with Austria, Finland is moving away from Freedom of Speech – but also because it has shown the existence of a very unholy trinity.
Halla-aho is an interesting phenomena in Finnish society, where not talking about problems has been the political consensus for decades: But what is even more interesting is the reaction he has caused in the society: The political field of Finland went into panic as he went thru the 2008 municipal election as the rising star in politics. And so did the media.
Halla-aho came in to politics through his blog, in which he criticizes multiculturalism, the reckless immigration policy of Europe and the double standards of the Finnish media. As a linguist and a sharp writer, he managed to condense the feelings of many Finns about the above-mentioned subjects in his blog, which became the voice for those who opposed the multiculturalist agenda of the Finnish government. Next thing you know, he was a city councilman – and that’s where things get interesting.
The political establishment went into full-blown panic and decided that politicians needed to be sensitivity-trained. A collective anti-racist agreement was introduced to all political parties. The prime-minister stated his concern about people trying to express their “racist views” by voting. The political field was openly annoyed about the fact that the citizens had voted for the wrong man.
And the media definitely agreed: Halla-aho became the victim of a smearing campaign of unseen caliber in recent Finnish history and was called a “race-doctor” in a news-broadcast, a title that is usually associated with Mengele.
It didn’t stop there: A rival political party filed a charge against Halla-aho about one of his texts. The police didn’t find anything in the text that could have been considered illegal. So they decided to go thru all his texts in the blog, just to make sure.
After the time-consuming task, they had finally found something to hand over to the state prosecutor: two sentences from a text that was personally aimed at the state prosecutor Mika Illman, appropriately called “a couple of baits to Mika Illman”. In his text, Halla-aho criticizes the double standards of the state prosecutor concerning the treatment of Islam and other religions.
The case was prepared, and Halla-aho was officially charged, conveniently just before the European Parliament election candidates were decided. He chose not to run for the European Parliament.
The case went to the Helsinki district court, where Halla-aho was sentenced to pay a 330 euro fine for saying that Muhammed was a pedophile, and that because Islam considers Muhammed to be a timeless and perfect example, Islam therefore sanctifies pedophilia. In conclusion he stated that Islam is a pedophilic religion, and that pedophilia is the will of Allah.
If we take a pedophile to mean a person who has sexual intercourse with children, everything Hallaaho stated makes sense: According to authoritative Islamic sources, Muhammed did have sexual intercourse with Aisha when she was a child, Islam does consider Muhammed to be a faultless and timeless example for all Muslims to follow, and therefore Islam does sanctify sexual intercourse with children, as long as it’s done inside matrimony.
Also, as the Quran states that Muhammed is faultless and a perfect example, and as the Quran is considered to be the literal words of Allah, by implication, sexual intercourse with children inside matrimony is Allah’s will.
What the state prosecutor proved along with the judge who handed down the sentence, is that Halla-aho is right about the double standards: Halla-aho read in court much more offensive statements made about Christianity that were factually false and clearly made with an intention to offend, but which the state prosecutor had not charged anybody, although they were brought to their attention.
So now in Finland, concerning Islam, it is illegal to draw a logical conclusion based on facts, but when it comes to Christianity, it is basically legal to say anything – whether based on facts or not. It is obvious that this approach is based on the perceived sensitivity-level of Muslims and Christians:
Because Muslims are perceived to be more sensitive, the law is more strict concerning statements about Islam.
Not only is this in contradiction with the principle of equality stated in the Finnish constitution, it is also problematic because this will only lead to an even more sensitive Muslim population, which in turn causes the law to be even more strict concerning statements about Islam. If this path is chosen, it will not end until it is completely illegal to criticize Islam in any way. By which time our laws on Freedom of Speech will be Islamic, not European.
What is also very disturbing about the case is that the political field, media and juridical system of Finland, seemed to work seamlessly together against Halla-aho. This is the unholy trinity I mentioned in the beginning of the article: I call it unholy because the juridical system should not be influenced by the political field, and the media should definitely not be influenced by the political field or the juridical system.
In Halla-aho’s case it is very hard to avoid the feeling that all these three had a common enemy, and that they consciously worked together to sabotage his political career.
And what was it that Halla-aho did that caused all this?
He criticized multiculturalism, the reckless immigration policy and the double standards of the media. Basically what he has been saying all along is that the ideology of multiculturalism seems tohave completely taken over the people who are making the decisions about our future and that this is causing
A) an uncontrolled immigration policy which very possibly can lead to the end of western culture as we know it
B) a near-complete media-silence about the problems caused by mass immigration from Muslimcountries
C) a situation where criticizing Islam is illegal
So just as an end-note: The fact that somebody is saying these things might not be enough for some people to get concerned. Everybody should, however, be very concerned when when the political field, media and judicial system of any western country start to act together to silence the person who is saying these things.
If you want to help Finland to retain it’s Freedom of Speech, please visit the website sitafinland.wordpress.com/en
WFT
