Tag: finland

ECRI Pressures Ireland and Finland to Adopt New “Hate Speech” Laws and Speech Monitoring Systems

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has issued another set of polite bureaucratic thunderbolts, this time aimed at Ireland and Finland, for not cracking down hard enough on their citizens’ conversations.

The group, operating under the Council of Europe, says both nations have been dragging their feet on what it calls “hate speech.”

In other words, they’re not censoring fast enough.

In Ireland’s case, ECRI was appalled to discover that the country’s “extremely limited” legal framework still leaves some room for public disagreement online.

The commission noted with concern that certain hate speech provisions were removed from the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024, and urged Dublin to correct the oversight by writing new laws to target such expression.

The report didn’t stop there. It called for a national data system to document “racist and LGBTI-phobic bullying and violence in schools” and a “comprehensive data collection” program for hate crimes and hate speech.

It even floated the idea of regulating “election-related misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy,” which it deemed “critical to limit the spread of hateful ideas.”

So the plan is clear: build a bureaucracy that tracks words, ideas, and schoolyard insults, then hand election discourse over to regulatory authorities. What could go wrong?

ECRI did find time to congratulate Ireland for its National Action Plan Against Racism and inclusion programs for Roma and Traveller communities.

But after that brief applause, the hammer came back down. Hate speech, it concluded, remains “widespread.” More laws, more oversight, more policing of conversation.

Finland’s report read like a blueprint for speech management. ECRI announced that hate speech there “has increased and reached a critical level,” though it didn’t specify what exactly counts as hate speech, or how “critical” was measured.

The group praised Finnish police for maintaining “a regular presence in a web-based gaming platform” where officers act as “game police” and talk to young users about hate speech and online crime. It’s not satire, that’s in the official report.

ECRI proposed creating a national working group to design new policies against hate speech and advised police to unify their methods for “recognition, unmasking and official recording” of hate.

Schools, it said, should install systems to track “racist and LGBTI-phobic incidents,” while even non-criminal “hate incidents” should be formally recognized and logged.

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US Condemns Prosecution of Finnish Lawmaker Over Bible Verse Tweet

Finland’s prosecution of Päivi Räsänen has drawn sharp condemnation from the US State Department, which labeled the charges “baseless” and included a Bible verse in a rare public gesture of support.

This comes as Finland’s Supreme Court prepares to hear a case widely regarded as a test of whether expressing religious beliefs can be treated as a criminal act in a democratic nation.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor made its position clear on X, stating: “In a democracy, no one should face trial for peacefully sharing their beliefs. The case against Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen, which accuses her of hate speech for simply posting a Bible verse, is baseless, as two courts have unanimously found.”

The post included a verse from Matthew 5:11: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

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Swastikas remain on some flags in Finland’s air force but are on the way out

Finland’s air force, now part of NATO, still flies swastikas on a handful of unit flags — but is preparing to phase them out, largely to avoid awkwardness with its Western allies.

The history of the Finnish air force’s use of the swastika, which since the 20th century has largely been associated with Nazi tyranny and hate groups, is more complex than at first appearance. It is an ancient symbol and Finland’s air force began using it many years before the birth of Nazi Germany.

Change has been underway for years. A swastika logo was quietly pulled off the Air Force Command’s unit emblem a few years ago. But swastikas have remained on some Finnish air force flags, raising eyebrows among NATO allies, tourists and other foreigners who spot them at military events.

“We could have continued with this flag, but sometimes awkward situations can arise with foreign visitors. It may be wise to live with the times, Col. Tomi Böhm, the new head of Karelia Air Wing air defense force, was quoted as saying in a report Thursday by the public broadcaster YLE.

A bad look for a new NATO member

The Defense Forces, in an email to The Associated Press on Friday, said a plan to renew the air force unit flags was launched in 2023, the year Finland joined NATO, but said it was not linked to joining the alliance. The aim, it said, was “to update the symbolism and emblems of the flags to better reflect the current identity of the Air Force.”

It referred to an article in daily Helsingin Sanomat on Friday, which said the reason for the removal was a perception that the swastika has been an “embarrassing symbol in international contexts.”

Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, joined NATO in April 2023 over concerns related to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Teivo Teivainen, a professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki, said the flags in question were introduced in the 1950s and today are flown by four Air Force units.

The Air Force and the Finnish public generally had for years insisted the swastikas used in Finland’s air force “have nothing to do with the Nazi swastika,” said Teivainen, who this month had a book published whose Finnish title translates as “History of the Swastika.”

But now, following Finland’s integration with NATO, policymakers have decided “there’s now a need to get more integrated with the forces of countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and France — countries where the swastika is clearly a negative symbol,” he said.

Teivainen said that in 2021, German air force units bowed out of a final ceremony following exercises at a military base in Finland’s Lapland region after learning that the Finnish swastikas would be on display.

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NATO state considers subjecting older citizens to military service

The Finnish Defense Ministry has submitted a proposal to raise the maximum age for military reservists to 65, according to a press release published on Wednesday. The move is part of a broader militarization trend among European NATO member states.

The proposed reform would apply to all citizens liable for being called up who were born in 1966 or later, potentially adding 125,000 personnel to Finland’s reserve forces over a five-year transition period. If enacted, the total number of reservists is projected to reach one million by 2031, the Defense Ministry noted.

Currently, rank-and-file soldiers are removed from the reserves at age 50, while officers exit at 60. The proposal would not apply retroactively to those already over 60.

According to the ministry, refresher training for 50–65-year-olds would be organized for those assigned wartime duties. No upper age limit would be set for military service volunteers.

The bill is expected to be submitted to the Finnish Parliament before its summer recess begins in late June.

The EU countries, including Finland, have been militarizing amid persistent claims that Russia could attack the bloc in the coming years. Moscow has denied having such intentions and has accused NATO and EU officials of “irresponsibly stoking fears” of a fabricated threat.

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Finland to criminalise Holocaust denial

The government is proposing to add a provision to the criminal code to outlaw Holocaust denial and other serious international crimes.

Suggesting that the Holocaust did not happen will become a punishable offence, with the penalty ranging from a fine to two years’ imprisonment.

The government submitted the legislative proposal to Parliament on Thursday, with the law expected to come into force this autumn.

The Finnish government proposal is based on the EU’s framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia.

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Finland’s Big Bet on Biometrics: Crime-Fighting Tool or Privacy Nightmare?

Finland has come out with a plan to expand the use of biometric data, with a new a new proposal from the country’s Interior Ministry.

Even as the push to introduce various forms of advanced biometric surveillance, including that incorporating facial recognition, is gaining momentum in countries around the world – so is the pushback from civil rights and privacy campaigners, which ensures that such initiatives these days rarely fly under the radar.

Finland’s Interior Ministry announced on its website that the proposal aims to amend existing rules on biometric data stored by the police and the immigration service – stored, that is, in Finnish citizens’ ID cards, and registers containing biometric data of foreigners.

The government says the intent is not only to strengthen crime prevention – but also to “improve the conditions for using biometrics in law enforcement.”

In addition to the collection of data captured by facial recognition devices, the proposal includes DNA samples and fingerprints taken from suspects. The process is then to attempt to match this biometric data with other types already contained in the law enforcement’s databases – for “crime prevention and investigative purposes.”

The groups keeping a close eye on this development are warning about some of the issues that crop up time and again around similar legislative efforts: the wording that allows for future “mission creep”- as well as unsatisfactory level of provisions that would guarantee against any abuse of such highly sensitive personal information.

Currently, the Finish proposal is yet to be presented to the lawmakers – the Interior Ministry is seeking comments before this can happen. And while the announcement of the proposal goes into the intent driving it, it is short on detail regarding the elephant in the room – privacy safeguards.

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Finnish Commandos Seize Russia-Linked Ship After Undersea Cable Cut

Finland has seized the ship which is being accused of cutting of an undersea cable connecting electricity to Estonia, allegedly on behalf of Russia, given that the vessel was carrying Russian oil. Finnish authorities and Western officials have described the damage to the Estlink 2 electricity cable as the result of “aggravated criminal mischief”.

EU officials have characterized the incident as part of Russia’s hybrid warfare against NATO, with a European Commission statement describing the cable severing as “the latest in a series of suspected attacks on critical infrastructure.”

The vessel in question was observed traversing the same area where the cable damage occurred near in time to the incident. Four additional telecom cables were disrupted – one linking Finland and Germany and three between Finland and Estonia.

Finland’s coast guard boarded the suspect vessel on Thursday:

Finnish police said in a statement that the coastguard crew boarded an oil tanker in Finnish waters early on Thursday. Authorities named the vessel as the Eagle S, and said it was registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.

When it was detained, the ship was sailing from Russia’s Saint Petersburg to Port Said in Egypt, according to online marine tracking website, MarineTraffic.

According to MarineTraffic, the ship was owned by United Arab Emirates-based vessel management company, Caravella.

The European Commission in its statement additionally accused the Eagle S ship of being part of Russia’s energy sanctions-busting ‘shadow fleet’.

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NATO State Warns Against Western Troops In Ukraine: “Discussion Has Gone Off The Rails”

One of NATO’s two newest members, Finland, is urging caution as some European leaders are considering a negotiated end to the Ukraine war which would involve sending Western peacekeeping forces. The incoming Trump administration is reportedly keen on the idea.

President of Finland Alexander Stubb issued a warning Tuesday before a defense cooperation summit in Tallinn, saying “We should not get ahead of ourselves” on the issue of a future peacekeeping mission, cited in Finnish outlet Yle.

His main criticism focused on the huge numbers of European troops that such a mission would require. “The operation cannot be launched on a shaky foundation,” he continued, explaining that an adequate peacekeeping force would have to have at least 150,000 soldiers on the ground.

“In rotation, that means three times that, or 450,000 peacekeepers per year. So perhaps this discussion has gone off the rails, so to speak,” he emphasized.

Stubb offered that instead of peacekeeping forces, Kiev should have security guarantees, and that should be the central driver of the discussion over future peace negotiations.

The past several months have seen leading NATO countries revive the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine. Whether in a ‘peacekeeping’ capacity or not, the Kremlin would see this as a massive escalation and has threatened war with the west.

Putin has made it clear that Russia will not tolerate NATO regular forces right on its border. Already this week Putin has said the West is going ‘beyond’ Russia’s stated red lines.

As the Biden administration has scrambled to try and build Kiev’s leverage on the battlefield prior to the Trump administration taking office, it recently greenlighted long-range missile attacks using ATACMS systems on Russia. 

Moscow has frequently said it is open to peace negotiations with Ukraine, but at this point is very unlikely to sign off on any plan which would see a European troop large deployment in any capacity.

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Sweden, Finland warn residents to be ready for war: ‘Situation is serious’

Sweden and Finland have all begun warning their residents to prepare for the possibility of war as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rages on.

Stockholm on Monday published its latest version of “In Case of Crisis or War,” a pamphlet instructing civilians on how to prepare for, and ride out, a national crisis that was last sent out in 2018.

The pamphlet, which has been issued five times since World War II, is now twice as long at 32 pages and focuses on war preparations as the Swedish government warns of the worsening situation in Ukraine.

“The security situation is serious and we all need to strengthen our resilience to face various crises and ultimately war,” said Mikael Frisell, director of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency.

An estimated 5.2 million copies of the pamphlet are set to be delivered to Swedish households in the next two weeks, with the text available in multiple languages online.

The text calls on citizens to be ready with a stockpile of food and emergency supplies, including baby food, medicine and hygiene products.

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NATO Kicks Off Largest Artillery Drills In Finland, On Russia’s Northern Doorstep

The US Army Europe and Africa on Monday launched what are being described as NATO’s largest artillery drills, dubbed Lightning Strike 24, and held in Finland’s northernmost region of Lapland.

The exercise involves over 5,000 military personnel from the US and 28 Allied and partner nations, and will feature over 130 weapons systems, aimed at showing off the alliance’s field artillery capability. But ironically this comes at a moment many Western nations have complained that their artillery shell stockpiles are dwindling to due supplying them to Ukraine over the past 2+ years of war.

The drills are expected to last until November 28, and encompass other locations beyond Finland, including Germany, Poland, Romania, and Estonia.

But it is the Finland portion of the drill likely to be most closely watched from Moscow, given the large Lapland area lies very near the Russian Murmansk region border, and north of the Arctic Circle.

“This is a good example of how our field artillery combined with Allied capabilities forms powerful defense in northern Finland and NATO,” the exercise commander, Colonel Janne Mäkitalo, has stated.

He also hailed that the drills will demonstrate how allied support can come to Finland “very quickly” if needed in the event of a conflict or threat.

Most of the NATO troops will be concentrated in the Finnish portion of the drills, some 3,600 military personnel out of the total 5,000.

The US Army is the most sizeable component, according to an official press release:

Major participating units and organizations include U.S Army Europe and Africa, U.S. Army 56th Artillery Command, U.S. Army V Corps, U.S. Army 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army 41st Field Artillery Brigade, U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division, U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division, U.S. Army 4th Security Assistance Forces Brigade, U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, the Finnish Army, NATO Multinational Division Northeast, and NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.

Finland and Sweden are NATO’s newest members, with Finland formally gaining entry April 4, 2023. Importantly, Finland shares a 1,340-kilometre (830 mi) border with Russia, and Moscow has warned that this could result of the greater militarization of the Baltic regions.

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