Editorial|Editorial
The suspicion of terrorism by the Kankaanpää group is exceptional. The harsh criminal title suggests that the police have evidence to support it.
Satakunnan The district court arrested five men on Friday on suspicion of preparing for a terrorist offense and an intentional explosive offense.
As such, it is not surprising that a far-right terrorist group is being investigated in Finland. For many years now, the protection police have highlighted the threat of a violent far-right alongside an extremist Islamist threat in their threat assessments. Still, the case of Kankaanpää is exceptional.
Finland has not previously investigated a far-right terrorist offense. The exceptionally harsh criminal title suggests that the police have evidence to support it.
Although the police follow radical far-right actors, terrorist offenses are typically difficult for police to investigate. Especially preparing for an attack can be difficult to obtain evidence. It is not yet known to the public what kind and what the detainees were preparing for.
Finland has been convicted of a terrorist offense only once. These were stabbings in Turku in 2017. An extremely Islamist-motivated factor was sentenced to life imprisonment.
With the far right Violence has a historical background in Finland. In recent years, the far right has moved from the street to the grid. Online communities flirting with white supremacy and ethnonationalism, such as the overboard, are not harmless, but serve as a recruitment platform for movements.
Different extremists feed each other. As Isis’s terrorism intensified in Europe, so did the far right. It has carried out several major terrorist attacks in recent years. In the United States, a strategy of domestic terrorism was completed in the summer, focusing primarily on the threat of the far right.
The Finnish far right is networked with each other and also with the world. The districts are small, and the different people work in different networks, based in part on a common worldview. Many of those who call themselves nationalist operate quite legally. However, there were also neo-Nazis in the 612 procession, which marched in Helsinki on Independence Day and gathered about 300 people.
The Nordic Resistance Movement (PVL) was wound up by a court decision in 2018. The actors continue in various networks. Suomen Sisu, which has received a lot of attention because of its members of parliament, does nothing in itself. Still, the operation is not without problems either. Members of parliament are prestigiously involved in networks whose propaganda incites racism, confrontation and fear.
The far right the rise is a harsh narrative of the spiritual state of the nation. There is now a breeding ground for racism and nationalism.
According to the police, the world of ideas of the men captured in Kankaanpää consists of a very violent far-right ideology called accelerationism and Siege culture. It incites racial warfare and wants to cause chaos that would create room for a coup.
At Kankaanpää, men were known for their far-right ideology, but it was closed, even though it affected the security and well-being of the entire community. Such people are easy to ignore as strange types of margins – until something bad happens. Small areas of the aging and shrinking population, such as Kankaanpää, are no aviaries, but rather are located in a deep risk zone for polarization.
There is a gripping surface for radicalization in a welfare society that is shaken by many upheavals at the same time. It is a serious place for society as a whole to study the preparation of a far-right terrorist attack in Finland.
The editorials are HS’s statements on a topical issue. The writings are prepared by HS’s editorial staff and reflect the magazine principle.
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