Far right Extreme right-wing groups for women and teenagers – Such organizations were born in Finland in the ruins of a banned neo-Nazi organization

Finland The biggest visible change in the far right has been the court’s decision to ban the Nordic Resistance Movement (PVL), which the authorities consider to be Finland’s most dangerous far-right organization before being abolished.

However, in the ruins of the banned neo-Nazi organization, several organizations with links to individuals or movements involved in the PVL emerged.

The Pirkanmaa District Court banned the association in 2017, and the Supreme Court’s decision to dissolve it became final in 2020.

The dissolution of the association seems to have curbed far-right violence in Finland, but members of the Nordic resistance movement also had time to adjust their activities to meet the post-ban period, says a study of the far right at the University of Jyväskylä. Tommi Kotonen in his recent article.

After the ban, members of the resistance movement discussed the activities in an online forum hosted by, among others, the leader of the National Action Organization. National Action is banned in Britain as a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors believe that the resistance movement continued to operate after the ban Towards Freedom! -mark. Activities under this name began to decline in Finland as early as October 2020, but there are now several people accused of continuing to engage in illegal association activities. activities.

Most members of the Nordic Resistance have not been convicted of crimes since the ban.

Operations have also largely shifted from the streets to the network. The impact of the coronavirus on this trend is difficult to assess, Kotonen’s article explains.

The scientific article was published in late December in The Online Journal of Deradicalization. The article also describes in detail the most important far-right groups that emerged in Finland from the ruins of the Nordic resistance movement.

The Nordic People’s Socialists

Towards freedom! served as leader of the Nordic Resistance Antti Niemi wanted to register a new association under the name Nordic National Socialists. The name and rules of the association were not valid for the National Board of Patents and Registration (NBPR), but after several attempts, the NBPR approved the Nordic People’s Socialists as its name.

According to Kotonen’s article, it was noticeable that the series of events in question was perceived as disturbing within the movement. Among other things, the Swedish leader of the Nordic Resistance Simon Lindberg took up the issue in his speech on Independence Day in Helsinki in December 2019.

“It was mostly related to the debate on freedom of speech in general. In other words, they felt that they did not have the same rights to organize and exercise freedom of speech as others, ”Kotonen explains by telephone.

National Socialism was Adolf Hitler the official idea of ​​the Nazi party, but the People’s Socialists are not known to be known in the history of ideas in Finnish. More and less authoritarian socialist regimes in Eastern Europe have called themselves democracies.

Ground Guard

Towards freedom! Even after the decline in activities, material has been publicly distributed that is very similar to the Nordic Resistance Movement and Towards Freedom! posters and stickers. The dissemination work has been carried out by a group called the Northern Guard.

According to Kotonen’s article, the group has been more insidious about who it belongs to. The Northern Guard has not itself declared itself a National Socialist neo-Nazi group, but according to Kotonen’s article, their content has been distributed on the website of the Nordic Resistance.

On its own website, Pohjanvartio says that it is a nationalist street co-operation organization founded in spring 2021 and that the backgrounds of its members consist of different organizational backgrounds.

Berkano

In 2020, a group called Berkano began to operate, which, according to the article, was founded for nationalist and National Socialist women. On Facebook, the group advertises itself with the slogan Nationalist Women!

The group has been active in Vkontakte, among other places. According to the article, Berkano would seem to be articulated based on social media hits Towards Freedom! and the Soldiers of Odin, known for their street patrols.

There were also some women in the Nordic resistance movement. According to the article, these Finnish women members of PVL have also served in the international organization The Women for Aryan Unity, which supports white supremacy. Kotonen says that at least one Finnish woman even held a management position.

National Socialist Youth

In 2019, the National Socialist Youth was born in Finland for 13–25-year-olds. Young people have also been involved in PVL’s operations in the past.

According to the article, the National Socialist Youth published books and other radical material published by the Nordic Resistance Movement on its website, which is no longer in operation.

The trade was made of eco-fascist and accelerator material, among other things, the article says. In accelerationism, the goal is to accelerate the collapse of society.

According to Kotonen’s article, a similar youth group has still been active in Telegram.

National development

In 2020, three former members of the Nordic Resistance formed an association called National Development. Kotonen’s article locates the management of funds from books and other materials of the Nordic Resistance Movement for the purpose of this association.

“The association has also published some new books or reprints that have been sold at far-right events or concerts,” the article says.

According to the article, a new website was launched in Finland in February 2020, which sells typical white power clothing brands. The website is still operational, although the company that registered it was wound up after the website was set up. The company had been registered by a member of the Nordic Resistance.

Finnish aid

The Finnish Aid Association used to be an internal part of the Nordic Resistance, which focused on animal rights. Since then, the association has also joined the street patrol, the article says.

Finnish aid was not discontinued with the Nordic Resistance and its background association, so the association has continued to operate. According to the association’s rules, it focuses on charity, among other things.

Kotonen’s article estimates that the association has received inspiration from outside Finland from Casapound and Golden dawn. According to the article, this is reflected, among other things, in the symbolism of the association.

Casapound is an Italian neo-fascist party that, as a movement, has also provided everyday services and neighborhood community. Golden Dawn, on the other hand, is a Greek neo-fascist party.

Is it worth banning?

Thus, after the Nordic resistance movement, several associations and communities have been established, with links to the membership of the Nordic resistance movement or the neo-Nazi movement.

According to the article, the interest of former members of the resistance movement in the Sinimusta movement, which is a party project founded by former Basic Finns and some radical right-wingers, can be seen online.

Some of the former members, on the other hand, have been active online in networks related to accelerationist terrorism, which aim to accelerate the collapse of society and clear up space for their own ideology, the article reports.

Different country research has not been able to respond very well to how well the ban on organizations in general works. Some researchers have believed that banning associations could accelerate the radicalization of members, but in the case of PVL, for example, there are no signs of this, according to Kotonen’s article.

For example, many neo-Nazi organizations banned in Germany in the 1990s still operate.

According to Kotonen’s article, banning the Nordic resistance movement has, at least for the time being, seemed to be somewhat successful in its goal, such as eradicating far-right street violence. Still, researchers are relatively unanimous that banning organizations is not an effective way to prevent radicalization in the long run.

By telephone, Kotonen estimates that the activism of people working in the ruins of PVL has not expanded, but rather that operations have been decentralized. Kotonen estimates, for example, on the basis of online behavior, that the number of people involved may also have decreased somewhat since the times of the resistance movement.

On the other hand, it was assessed to the HS that the field of far-right groups organized already during the opposition action and after the final verdict was fragmented. According to Supo, there is no national substitute for the national level.