Three activists from the Finns Party Youth group are on trial today at Pirkanmaa District Court, facing charges of racial incitement connected to last year’s European Parliament elections.
In spring 2019 the Finns Party Youth shared post on its Facebook page showing a European Parliament election campaign advert with two dark-skinned parents holding their child. The message beside it, in Finnish, read “vote for the Finns Party if you don’t want Finland’s future to look like this.”
The post was denounced by politicians and civil society as racist, but the Finns Party Youth says this was the act of one individual person Toni Jalonen, and not the organisation as a whole, and the post was removed.
However the Ministry of Education and Culture said the Finns Party Youth was in violation of funding rules, and cut €115,000 grants. About half which had already been given had to be paid back.
After other scandals, including Jalonen declaring himself a “fascist”, the Finns Party Youth was disbanded, but re-formed by the main party in another guise.
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