Fear and paranoia lead Finns to form vigilante groups that ‘protect women’ from asylum seekers
Editor’s note
(about 7 hours later)
TAMPERE, Finland — On a frigid night in this industrial city, three born and bred local men pulled up to a curb in a beat-up van sporting the stars and bars of the American Confederacy (because, they say, they just liked the look of it). Soon, they joined a dozen other beefy vigilantes gathering on a sidewalk for their first patrol to keep “our women” safe.
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These are the men of the Soldiers of Odin — a new far-right citizens group sprouting chapters across Finland. Its members are multiplying as this northern nation is becoming a case study of the fear and suspicion gripping Europe after asylum seekers were suspected of committing a series of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve.
Spread across cities in central and northern Europe, the attacks included almost 400 complaints of sexual harassment in Cologne, Germany, as well as 15 alleged sex-related crimes in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Across Europe, the incidents are fast altering the debate over a record wave of would-be refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, with fresh barriers to new migrants going up from Sweden to Greece.
Citing sexual harassment of women, some public pools in Germany have begun banning male asylum seekers. Vigilante groups are taking to the streets. Europeans, meanwhile, are fretting in droves on social media about an unfolding culture clash with the newcomers. Suddenly, many are asking an uncomfortable question: Do asylum seekers — more specifically, some of the men from conservative Muslim nations — pose an inherent threat to liberated and casually dressed Western women?
“These refugees do not respect our women,” said Ilkka, a 33-year-old sprinkler installer who would give only his first name. “I have four daughters, and they used to be safe in Finland. We need to do something about it.”
Critics say the danger is being vastly exaggerated and denounce the attacks as the work of a few bad seeds. Yet even asylum seekers concede that some in their ranks have a steep learning curve to accept progressive Western European norms, especially regarding women. And fresh reports of alleged sex crimes suspected to have been committed by asylum seekers are now emerging in Finland, including several alleged rapes that predate the New Year’s Eve crime wave.
[German chancellor pledges crackdown on criminal asylum seekers]
Just as worrying, however, are a spat of hate crimes against asylum seekers, illustrating the new social tensions in European communities like Tampere. A largely white enclave in south-central Finland bordered by miles of Christmas-tree forests, Tampere saw more than 4,000 asylum seekers, mostly from war-torn Iraq, arrive over the past six months.
Since then, there have been at least 50 incidents involving asylum seekers as either suspects or victims — including one alleged rape of a Finnish woman as well as the alleged stalking of a local teenage girl. Even foreign-born residents who have lived here for years say they have noticed a disturbing change. Abbas al-Arja — a 25-year-old former Iraqi boxer who moved to Finland in 2010 — said he intervened in the town center last month to stop two young Iraqi asylum seekers who were pushing themselves onto a Finnish woman who was “clearly uncomfortable.”
“Some of them coming now have a lot to learn,” he said. “They do not understand a woman dressed like that.”
Yet after a recent stabbing of an asylum seeker by a group of Finnish men, and a suspicious arson set at a refugee center near Tampere, the newcomers are also more fearful. The new patrols by the Soldiers of Odin, al-Arja said, have only made the situation worse.
“Now Muslim women are afraid to go in the streets because of the Soldiers of Odin,” al-Arja said. “What have we achieved? We are afraid of them, and they are afraid of us.”
Concerns aren’t limited to Tampere. In recent weeks, sales of pepper spray have gone through the roof across Finland as well as Germany. New self-defense classes are popping up. In some German communities, sales of fake weapons are soaring.
In several German cities, including Bornheim, male asylum seekers were banned last week from using public pools after female swimmers complained about harassment. In one incident in the east German city of Zwickau, asylum seekers allegedly ejaculated and defecated in a public pool, sparking a firestorm of outrage on social media.
In Austria, the right-wing Freedom Party has latched on to the women’s security issue, citing it as a primary motive for a total ban on new asylum seekers. On Wednesday, Austrian officials agreed to a controversial measure capping the number of asylum seekers this year at 37,500. In addition, no more than 90,000 would be permitted between 2017 and 2019. Officials said they were exploring legal options for what steps Vienna could take under European Union laws should those numbers be exceeded. As of Friday, Austrian officials also began new vetting procedures at the country’s borders aimed at allowing fewer migrants in.
“We want to have a society again in which women and elderly people can move safely and freely in our streets,” Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said last week. “The misogyny and contempt we have seen unfortunately has Islamist roots . . . because it is directed against infidel women who are often insulted as whores for not wearing a headscarf and a veil.”
[German police report describes ‘chaotic and shameful’ night of attacks on women]
In Helsinki last week, large numbers of male asylum seekers were hanging out at the city’s central train station, the site of many of the incidents on New Year’s Eve. Satu Eklund, a 28-year-old hairdresser who looked flustered before her commute home, said that one young man “who looked like a refugee” had grabbed her rear end and offered her a salacious grin only moments before.
“No, I’m not scared, but I am mad,” she said. “I don’t have anything against the refugees, but we should be able to live in peace.”
Helsinki police say that there has been an increase in rapes during the latter half of 2015, coinciding with a surge of 32,000 asylum seekers to Finland. But the increase — 196 rapes in 2015, compared with 179 in 2014 — remains statistically small. Officials, while declining to offer more details, say that asylum seekers or refugees are suspects in at least three rapes, and possibly more. But they added that it is too early to say whether the numbers constitute a trend.
“We still need more specific information and analysis before we can say that there is a connection between the increase in rapes and sexual harassment cases and the increase in the number of refugees,” Helsinki Police Chief Lasse Aapio said. “But we need to be alert, and of course we are worried, because it’s obvious that we’re facing some changes in our society right now.”
Police and national authorities are also worried, however, about the rise of vigilante groups and citizen street patrols with names such as the Finnish Resistance. The Soldiers of Odin, whose name is a reference to the Nordic god of war and death, includes known neo-Nazis as well as other followers with criminal records. Still others are Donald Trump-loving, European good ol’ boys with an ax to grind.
“I hope Trump wins,” Ilkka said. “Maybe he’d teach the European Union something.”
The Soldiers’ first foray in Tampere last week, however, proved less successful than they’d hoped. Within moments of hitting the streets, a troop of protesters dressed as clowns and calling themselves “the Loldiers of Odin” (a play on the Internet shorthand for “laughing out loud”) ambushed the black-clad vigilantes.
At one point, the clowns — most of them women — surrounded the men and taunted them by singing a local version of “Ring Around the Rosie.”
“They are clowns too, doing what they’re doing,” said one young protester, who, like the others, declined to break character and give her name. “We are here to show tolerance, because these clowns,” she said, gesturing toward the men, “are the ones who are winning in Finland.”
Stephanie Kirchner contributed to this report.
Read more:
Man in failed attack on Paris police lived in German shelter for asylum seekers
Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants
Even Europe’s humanitarian superpower is turning its back on refugees
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