He finnish government faces a new crisis after it was made public that the current Finance Minister and leader of the far-right party true Finns, Riikka Purracould be the author of a series of violent and racist comments published fifteen years ago on the internet. The comments, signed by a woman named “riikka”, were published in 2008 on the blog of the former far-right leader and current president of the Eduskunta (Finnish Parliament), Jussi Halla-aho, who was sentenced in 2012 for a crime against peace. religion after publishing anti-Islamic opinions in it.

The Finnish press attributes the texts signed by “riikka” to the Finance Minister, who was not yet engaged in politics at the time, due to the coincidences in many personal details between the author of the comments and the current ultra leader. In these texts she refers to the black people with the derogatory term “neekerit”, Muslims as “mocha penises” and immigrants from Turkey as “Turkish monkeys”. “If any of you are in Helsinki, is anyone up to spit on beggars and beat up black children?” riikka wrote on the blog forum in July 2008.

Two months later he published a “post” in which he assured that, if they gave him a weapon, “there would be corpses even on the commuter train.” The True Finns leader acknowledged Monday that at the time she wrote numerous comments on Halla-aho’s blog that she would not post today, but neither admitted nor denied having signed them like “riikka”. According to Purra, at the time she was “very frustrated” by certain aspects of immigration in Finland, such as sexual violence against women and Islam’s gender inequality, so she was able to write “in an angry and stupid way” at times. .

In addition, he assured that he has never accepted any type of violence and, although he admitted that he no longer thinks the same way as before, he refused to back down or apologize for what he said years before starting his political career. The matter has caused a great scandal in the country just ten days after the Minister of Economic Affairs, the far-right Vilhelm Junnilawould be forced to resign due to his alleged ties to neo-Nazi groups after less than two weeks in office.

“I think that the Finnish government would do well to adopt a clear zero-tolerance stance towards racism. If it did, it would be a good sign to the world,” Finnish President told reporters on Tuesday. Sauli Niinisto, from Lithuania, where he is participating in the NATO summit. For his part, the prime minister, the conservative Petteri Orpo, assured the local media that he does not accept racism “in any of its forms” and affirmed that the four parties that make up the government coalition are committed to the principles of equality and equity. Orpo was satisfied with the explanations offered by his main government partner, the leader of True Finns, and said that it was necessary for Purra will publicly distance herself from violence.