Yleisradio Oy, abbreviated as Yle and translated into English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founded in 1926. It is a joint-stock company which is 99.98% owned by the Finnish state and employs around 3,200 people in Finland. Yle shares many of its organizational characteristics with its British counterpart, the BBC, on which it was largely modeled.
Oulu is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after: Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere and Vantaa, and the fourth largest urban area in the country after Helsinki, Tampere and Turku. Oulu's neighbouring municipalities are: Hailuoto, Ii, Kempele, Liminka, Lumijoki, Muhos, Pudasjärvi, Tyrnävä and Utajärvi.
Human rights in Finland are freedom of speech, religion, association, and assembly as upheld in law and in practice. Individuals are guaranteed basic rights under the constitution, by legislative acts, and in treaties relating to human rights ratified by the Finnish government. The constitution provides for an independent judiciary.
Finland is Christian majority country, with Islam being a minority faith. The constitution of Finland ensures freedom of religion and Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country.
Somalis in Finland are residents and citizens of Finland of Somali ancestry. As of 2022, 24,365 Finns had a Somali-background, making it the fourth most common foreign country of origin and the largest from Africa.
Immigration to Finland is the process by which people migrate to Finland to reside in the country. Some, but not all, become Finnish citizens. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of Finland. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behaviour.
Immigration to Sweden is the process by which people migrate to Sweden to reside in the country. Many, but not all, become Swedish citizens. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused some controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, violence, and voting behaviour.
Teuvo Hakkarainen is a Finnish politician and member of the European Parliament, representing the Finns Party. Before being elected to the European Parliament in the 2019 election, he had been a member of the Finnish Parliament since 2011.
New Finns are those people in Finland’s population who have a non-ethnic Finnish background and who reside permanently in the country. A new Finn may have various backgrounds; including immigrant, immigrant-origin, refugee and/or having come to Finland for family reasons. The term is especially used to emphasize those that have a Finnish citizenship and carry Finnish passports, to those foreigners who live permanently in Finland and intend to be naturalized in Finland at some point in the future. Finland has experienced large-scale, continuous non-European immigration only within the past couple of decades. The term uussuomalainen is beginning to come into usage to commonly refer to these new, naturalized Finns, who are beginning to change and affect the national landscape of the country.
Crime in Finland is combated by the Finnish police and other agencies.
The Fatal stabbing of Alexandra Mezher occurred on 25 January 2016. Mezher, a 22-year-old worker at an asylum center, of Lebanese Christian origin, was stabbed by a male asylum seeker at a refuge for unaccompanied minors in Mölndal, Sweden. The attacker, a Somali male, was posing as an underage unaccompanied refugee claiming to be 15, but, after the attack, medical examination determined that he was at least 18 years old.
Soldiers of Odin is an anti-immigrant group which was founded in Kemi, Finland, in October 2015. The group was established in response to the thousands of migrants who were arriving in Finland amidst the European migrant crisis. They call themselves a "patriotic organisation that fights for a Finland" that wants to scare away "Islamist intruders" they say cause insecurity and increase crime.
Crimes may be committed both against and by immigrants in Germany. Crimes involving foreigners have been a longstanding theme in public debates in Germany. In November 2015, a report that was released by the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) stated that "While the number of refugees is rising very dynamically, the development of crime does not increase to the same extent." Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) noted that "refugees are on average as little or often delinquent as comparison groups of the local population." A 2018 statistical study by researchers at the University of Magdeburg using 2009-2015 data argued that, where analysis is restricted to crimes involving at least one German victim and one refugee suspect and crimes by immigrants against other immigrants are excluded, there is no relationship between the scale of refugee inflow and the crime rate. In 2018 the interior ministry under Horst Seehofer (CSU) published, for the first time, an analysis of the Federal Police Statistic, which includes all those who came via the asylum system to Germany. The report found that the immigrant group, which makes up about 2% of the overall population, contains 8.5% of all suspects, after violations against Germany's alien law are excluded.
The 2017 Turku attack took place on 18 August 2017 at around 16:02–16:05 (UTC+3) when 10 people were stabbed in central Turku, Southwest Finland. Two women were killed in the attack and eight people sustained injuries.
Susanna Maria Feldmann was a 14-year-old German girl who was raped and killed on the night of 22 May 2018 in Wiesbaden. Ali Bashar Ahmad Zebari, a 21-year-old asylum seeker from Iraqi Kurdistan, confessed to the murder and was found guilty in July 2019 at a trial in Landgericht Wiesbaden.
The 2018 Amsterdam stabbing attack was an attack on 31 August 2018, in Amsterdam Centraal station. A 19-year-old man from Afghanistan stabbed and injured two American tourists. The attacker was shot and injured by the police. Amsterdam Police confirmed that they believe he had a terrorist motive.
The African diaspora in Finland refers to the residents of Finland of full or partial African ancestry, mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa. According to Statistics Finland, the total number of people in Finland with a close African background was 57,496 in 2020.
In December 2018, it transpired that adult men, all of whom had arrived in Finland as asylum seekers or refugees, were grooming, and raping and otherwise sexually abusing, girls under 15 years of age in Oulu, Finland. One victim ended up committing suicide. The Oulu Police Department warned young girls and parents, while emphasizing that "not all people with foreign backgrounds are dishonest or criminals".
Ano Veli Samuel Turtiainen is a Finnish former powerlifter and politician who served in the Parliament of Finland for the South-Eastern Finland constituency from 2019 to 2023. He is also founder and leader of Power Belongs to the People party. He lives in Juva. Turtiainen was elected to the parliament in the 2019 parliamentary election. Turtiainen was expelled from the Finns Party due to him posting a tweet perceived as mocking the murder of George Floyd in February 2021.
Svenska Folkskolans Vänner r.f. is a Finnish association aiming to support the schooling of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland.
