Finland

Finland: Citizen journalist, blogger, human rights activist Anter Yasa victim of police intimidation……..


 

Clearly Anter Yasa is being victimized by the Finnish police…

 

Jari Taponen (who has yet to block me) is an online personality who identifies himself as a policeman on Twitter. His political orientation has been noted by others to be a Greens supporter. He solicits exchanges from his detractors, then files charges against them when the conversation, that he encourages (I would say ‘eggs on’), becomes rather heated. He shouldn’t be allowed to carry on this way, it’s clearly a breach of public trust.

 

Online police Taponen made a criminal report on a civil activist: Police action went into turmoil right from the start – “How on earth can you mess up like this?”

Civic activist, journalist and blogger Anter Yasa has run into a strange situation following a defamation complaint made against him by Jari Taponen, the Helsinki High Commissioner. Yasa was already told there was no reason to suspect a crime – but then the case manager changed.

 

The crime report made by Chief Commissioner Jari Taponen’s civic activist Anter Yasa dates back to Yasa’s old blog post criticizing Taponen’s policies and rhetoric. Yasa has been particularly critical of Taponen’s sympathetic statements about Islam, Islamism, terrorism and jihadism.

 

With a strong presence in social media, Taponen has also previously blocked Yasa, preventing him from following Taponen’s Twitter account, where Taponen also publishes press releases.

 

First, there was no reason to suspect the crime …

 

Following the report of the crime, the investigating director first informed Yasa by email that he was preparing a decision not to conduct a preliminary investigation into the case because there was no reason to suspect the crime.

 

Later, the same investigator-in-chief sent a new message to Yasa informing them that the investigator-in-charge had been replaced in relation to the crime report. A new message suggests to Yasa that a pre-trial investigation would still be possible.

 

– I find such a procedure strange and perhaps even illegal. It looks like the investigator-in-chief is rotating inside the police until someone sees the suspicion of a crime, Yasa wonders.

 

Was it meant to silence the writing?

 

Yasa considers that the purpose of Taponen’s criminal report was mainly to silence Yasa’s writing. Yasa is a well-known citizen journalist, writer and a well-known social media influencer. Among other things, he defends the rights of sexual minorities and is a founding member of a secular immigrant organization.

 

When Yasa first learned that a criminal investigation into him was not leading to a pre-trial investigation, Yasa filed his own criminal charges against Taponen. In his criminal report, Yasa called on police to investigate Taponen’s conduct as an authority.

 

– I believe that Taponen’s real purpose has been to prevent me from acting and to restrict my freedom of speech to criticize the authorities.

 

The police withdrew their words

 

A couple of days after filing the crime report, Yasa received a response from the Prosecutor General stating that his criminal report on Tapos would not lead to an investigation.

The next day, Yasa learned that the investigation into him had led to a change in the investigator-in-chief, and that the police could not deliver a decision not to conduct a pre-trial investigation.

 

– The police pulled back their own words. I sent a reply stating that in this way the police, by their own actions, would undermine confidence in the police. After all, should I trust what the police say? I didn’t get a good answer anymore, Yasa wonders.

 

Yasa puts forward the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, which requires the citizen to have confidence in the correctness of the authority’s actions, the legality of its decisions and the fact that no unexpected changes are made to its decisions afterwards.

 

– I think this is a breach of my trust.

 

Where are we going?

 

Yasa initially considers Taponen to have acted improperly, including by preventing Yasa from following his Twitter account. However, the real reason for filing the crime report was Taponen’s previous criminal report on Yasa, which Yasa considers to be unfounded – even though the police had informed him that no pre-trial investigation was being conducted.

 

Yasa says he is amazed at the reversal of the case and the change of police officers. However, he is calm about the situation.

 

– Waiting now to see if the new investigator-in-chief has anything to do, that is, where we are going, and whether the decision will be made that a criminal report against me will not lead to an investigation – as I have been told before.

 

Yasa recalls that he himself is a refugee

 

– Taponen has appeared in public as a very tolerant and liberal person. Why on earth does he spend his time on self-reported crime, and how on earth can the police mess up this way?

 

Suomenuutiset.fi

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