Eurovision | A group of activists is planning a giant demonstration in Tampere alongside the New Music Competition

in Tampere a new group supporting Palestinians, Tampere with Palestine, started operating in October. It has already organized 12 demonstrations in Tampere, two of them last weekend.

On Saturday, five members of the group demonstrated on the artificial ice rink in Sorsapuisto with a Palestinian flag and a megaphone, when the president of the republic Sauli Niinistö skated on the rink and played hockey with the youngsters for a while in public skating. On Sunday, Tampere with Palestine showed its opinion in Keskustor next to the Old Church with about 150 people.

At the Saturday and Sunday demonstrations, the group's founder, a taxi driver from Tampere, used the loudest voice Mohamed Yousif. The demonstrations were organized by his spouse Maryam Abuzaid.

Yousif, who has a Sudanese background, says that he founded the Tampere with Palestine group six days after the Hamas attack, because he is worried about his spouse's relatives and loved ones. “My father is Palestinian,” Abuzaid says.

Sunday at the demonstration, Yousif used quite aggressive rhetoric about Israel, Finland and Yleisradio. “It wasn't aggressive, but matter-of-fact,” says Yousif. According to him, Israel is currently committing the genocide of the Palestinians and Finland is complicit in it because of its arms deals with Israel. Finland ordered the Daavidin linko anti-aircraft system from Israel in November. “At the same moment that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, Finland paid Israel 317 million euros for weapons.”

The demonstrators also often shouted the slogan “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, which has been interpreted as a call to drive the Israelis into the sea, practically genocide of the Israelis. In his speech to the demonstrators, Yousif clarified that the slogan meant that everyone would be free in the Palestinian territory, regardless of religion or ethnic background. “It doesn't mean that we want to drive the Israelis into the sea,” says Yousif. Abuzaid says that people in Palestine have traditionally always taken care of each other and helped each other, regardless of their religion or background.

Finland Yleisradio and the European Broadcasting Union EBU were criticized by the protesters for allowing Israel to participate in Eurovision. “For what reason, even though at the same time Russia has been excluded from visas after starting its war of aggression in Ukraine,” Yousif asks.

Finland's Eurovision representative will be chosen on February 10 in Tampere's Nokia Arena in Yleisradio's New Music competition. Yousif and Abuzaid are organizing a national demonstration on the same day in Sori Square near the Nokia Arena. “Thousands of people from all over Finland participate in it,” says Yousif.