Police seeks to ban Finnish Neo-Nazi organizatio

[Tiriol]

News source in Finnish. Finnish National Police Board seeks a court authorization to ban a Neo-Nazi organization called Nordic Resistance Movement (also known as Finnish Resistance Movement.

National Police Board presses charges against Nordic Resistance Movement to shut it down

The National Police Board has come to the conclusion that the Neo-Nazi organization Nordic Resistance Movement's activities are substantially against the law and good manners.

The National Police Board will press charges in a court of law to shut down the Neo-Nazi organization Nordic Resistance Movement. Since September, the Board has deliberated whether it can raise charges against the Finnish Resistance Movement, currently Nordic Resistance Movement, to shut it down.

- The Board has concluded that the activities of the Nordic Resistance Movement are substantially against the law and good manners, so pressing charges and bringing the matter to the court of law have solid reasons, National Police Comissioner Seppo Kolehmainen has said in a statement.

According to the Association Act, no association, union or similar society can have a stated purpose that is contrary to the law or good manners. Nordic Resistance Movement has not been registered as an association, but the National Police Board considers it to be an ideological unregistered association. According to the Board, one cannot circumvent rules governing association activities by leaving the association unregistered.

- Vuolent and openly racist associations have no place in Finnish society, nor should they have, Kolehmainen states.

The national Police Board will leave the charges to the court in the beginning of year 2017.

Translation by me.

This bunch of Neo-Nazis have been in the news for some time now: one of their former leaders has revealed information about their activities and goals and this autumn one Neo-Nazi from this movement apparently caused the death of a person who made his dislike of the Nazis known during Neo-Nazi protest (more info about it in the next news item). I hope the courts will outlaw this organization - a disturbing undercurrent of far right activities have entered Finnish political life and by culling (at least) the open Nazis, we still could send a signal that violent, hateful ideologies have no room in Finland.

YLE News report about the incident that led to a private citizen's death and is now being handled in a court as a manslaughter.

Neo-Nazi faces manslaughter charges in Helsinki court

A leader of a Finnish neo-Nazi group has gone on trial in Helsinki in connection with a fatal assault on a man during a demonstration by the Finnish Resistance Movement.

On Wednesday, one of the founders of a Finnish neo-Nazi group went on trial at Helsinki District Court on manslaughter charges. He is suspected of causing the death of a man who was assaulted during a demonstration by the far-right Finnish Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a 'national socialist'.

Jesse Torniainen, 26, is suspected of aggravated manslaughter and aggravated assault in the death of a passerby who died a few days after the incident by Helsinki Railway Station on September 10. He denies any wrongdoing. The prosecutor is seeking a tough sentence of 5.5-6 years in prison, citing the suspect's record of violent crime and the context of his membership in a racist organisation.

"Racist clowns"

District Prosecutor Anja-Riitta Rinkinen tells Yle that the events on Railway Square began with the victim spitting on the ground and saying something about "racist clowns" while members of the extremist group were holding a demonstration.

"This was immediately followed by a powerful leaping kick to the victim's chest, whereupon he fell backwards. He suffered a severe head injury," she says.

The prosecutor is seeking a toughening of the sentence based on unusual extenuating circumstances.

"This is a case of an act directed at a person who opposed racist incitement," says Rinkinen, adding that it took place within the context of the defendant's membership in a racist group.

Defence attorney cites media coverage

She dismissed witnesses' accounts whereby the 28-year-old victim had used intoxicants before the incident and during the few days he spent in hospital after the attack. He was discharged from the hospital but died at home on September 16, six days after the incident.

"As far as I can see, the use of intoxicants did not play a role in his death," Rinkinen says.

Torniainen's lawyer, Hannu Tuomainen, says his client admits to being guilty of simple assault but not aggravated manslaughter. He also argues that there has been excessive media coverage of the case.

A ruling is to be handed down in the case on December 30.

6:21 pm: Added length of prison term sought by prosecutor and ruling date.

Sources Yle

[Lord Revan]

For what I've read this I see no reason not to ban these disgusting relics of a time best left in the past. While free speach is important to a democratic nation, for the nation to be healthy there must be limits.

There is after all a world of difference between critizing the goverment for in taking refugees when the country's own economy isn't totally healthy and saying "the brown people come to steal our women and jobs!". One is saying that in order to help people, we must in a condition to be able to help and the other is saying we shouldn't help because "they're not like us".

[Tribble]

Unfortunately banning organizations and criminalizing racist / homophobic / anti-(insert religion here) statements etc aren't good enough. While it may reduce the impact that these groups can have they will just be driven underground and will be left there to simmer, and they will come out in the open again when they feel the time right. It's kind of like trimming weeds; they'll always be around until you manage to completely eliminate the roots. Ideally it's the thoughts and ideas that need to be banished and eliminated, not just their public display. But how does one go about doing that without becoming Orwellian in the process?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Unfortunately banning organizations and criminalizing racist / homophobic / anti-(insert religion here) statements etc aren't good enough. While it may reduce the impact that these groups can have they will just be driven underground and will be left there to simmer, and they will come out in the open again when they feel the time right. It's kind of like trimming weeds; they'll always be around until you manage to completely eliminate the roots. Ideally it's the thoughts and ideas that need to be banished and eliminated, not just their public display. But how does one go about doing that without becoming Orwellian in the process?

You dont have to ban the thoughts. Education and exposure tend to do it pretty well. You know what almost everyone in the US who hates muslims have in common? They have never actually sat down and had coffee (or hummus) with a real-live muslim.

[Tribble]

Unfortunately banning organizations and criminalizing racist / homophobic / anti-(insert religion here) statements etc aren't good enough. While it may reduce the impact that these groups can have they will just be driven underground and will be left there to simmer, and they will come out in the open again when they feel the time right. It's kind of like trimming weeds; they'll always be around until you manage to completely eliminate the roots. Ideally it's the thoughts and ideas that need to be banished and eliminated, not just their public display. But how does one go about doing that without becoming Orwellian in the process?

You dont have to ban the thoughts. Education and exposure tend to do it pretty well. You know what almost everyone in the US who hates muslims have in common? They have never actually sat down and had coffee (or hummus) with a real-live muslim.

And how to you ensure that all people have the education and exposure? How do you prevent people from going into their own social echo-chambers to reinforce their viewpoints? What of the influence of parents on their children? What about people who deliberately avoid and have their children avoid what they see as evil socialist education and exposure etc? What about the people who refuse to conform and try to spread their thoughts as far and wide as possible? You can ban it all publically, try to spread education and exposure as much as possible etc but that doesn't appear to make the ideas go away, they just go underground. And then they will (as in this case) resurface again once it looks like political / economic conditions are in their favour.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Unfortunately banning organizations and criminalizing racist / homophobic / anti-(insert religion here) statements etc aren't good enough. While it may reduce the impact that these groups can have they will just be driven underground and will be left there to simmer, and they will come out in the open again when they feel the time right. It's kind of like trimming weeds; they'll always be around until you manage to completely eliminate the roots. Ideally it's the thoughts and ideas that need to be banished and eliminated, not just their public display. But how does one go about doing that without becoming Orwellian in the process?

You dont have to ban the thoughts. Education and exposure tend to do it pretty well. You know what almost everyone in the US who hates muslims have in common? They have never actually sat down and had coffee (or hummus) with a real-live muslim.

And how to you ensure that all people have the education and exposure? How do you prevent people from going into their own social echo-chambers to reinforce their viewpoints? What of the influence of parents on their children? What about people who deliberately avoid and have their children avoid what they see as evil socialist education and exposure etc? What about the people who refuse to conform and try to spread their thoughts as far and wide as possible? You can ban it all publically, try to spread education and exposure as much as possible etc but that doesn't appear to make the ideas go away, they just go underground. And then they will (as in this case) resurface again once it looks like political / economic conditions are in their favour.

I dont think homeschooling is allowed in Finland (if I am wrong, correct me Finns) so there is that. But vicious racism is the sort of thing that can take generations to get rid of. There is no quick fix for it, but the best way to do that is not have a country that is lily white. It is harder to hate people you know, which is why port cities tend to be more accepting than inland cities.

So bring in refugees over racist objections. Then the son of the Nazi goes to school with a dude named Ahmad and it is MUCH harder for Nazism to transfer intergenerationally.

[Lord Revan]

Well you got to remember that Finland has only 6 million or so citizen in total and most of that is focused into major cities so it's kind of hard to create the "you shall have no contact with non-white people" communities US has, at least not without becoming insignifigantly small in the process.

While private schools exist (dunno about home schooling), the rules and regulations for the teachers are the same for those as public ones, tbh organizations like this one are more of an embrassment then a threat at the national level. The vicious racism that US suffers isn't really common here. This is more about saying "if you act like a thug, you shouldn't whine when you got thrown to prison" rather then censoring tought.

[Edi]

Another thing to remember is that we do not have absolute freedom of speech. We have certain hate crimes on the books, one of which is "incitement against a population group" (as delineated by religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or a number of other criteria). So advocating violence or even baseless discrimination against for example Somalis or Muslims in general or gypsies or Russians or whatever, that's a crime.

The thoughts themselves are banned and nobody cares if you speak among yourselves about that sort of stuff, but bring it into the public arena with calls for such actions and you just ran afoul of the law. By making it clear through the force of law that this shit just does not fly pretty effectively clips its wings, because it sends a strong signal and denies avenues of spreading their poison for such groups.

This particular group also has a longstanding history of violent criminal activity, so basically it's just a street gang of thugs that deserves to be crushed under the boot of state power. There's nothing wrong with being critical of immigration, especially mass immigration as long as you can marshal your arguments peaceably, but these assholes are out and out criminals and fascists, many of whom would have been right at home as guards at Auschwitz. Fuck them.