In the vast majority of suspected hate crimes, the motive was the victim’s ethnic or national background. Their number increased by a third.
Captivating the person was beaten by the guards because of his Romani background.
Another person was intimidated, bullied and slandered for several months. The reason for the actions was his disability.
The third person ended up being insulted by a passenger in his job as a taxi driver. The reason was the driver’s ethnic background.
These are examples of suspected hate crimes from last year in Finland. The cases are mentioned in the annual hate crime overview published by the Police University of Applied Sciences on Thursday.
According to the review, the number of suspected hate crimes continued to grow last year. During the year, the police registered a total of 1,245 crime reports, which were defined in the review as suspected hate crimes.
The number thus grew practically as large as in the record year of suspected hate crimes in 2015, when there were 1,250 crime reports. At that time, an exceptionally large number of asylum seekers came to Finland.
The most common hate crimes were defamation and assault.
With a hate crime means any crime that is motivated by, for example, the target’s ethnic or national background, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
What could be the reason for the possible increase in such crimes?
The Police University of Applied Sciences’ review does not take a position on the direct causes of the situation in Finland, but it mentions some factors that affected the hate crime climate in Europe from last year.
Such are, for example, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the increased movement of people after the pandemic and the increase in the number of asylum seekers and refugees in the EU.
In addition, the year 2022 was the most violent year in Europe for people belonging to sexual and gender minorities.
The review also points out that last year there was a wider discussion about incel thinking than before. Incel comes from English words involuntary celibacy i.e. reluctant celibacy.
“The incel subculture has formed its own community on the internet, and the community, which mainly consists of young men, mostly blames women for their involuntary celibacy. Many members of the community are openly misogynistic and some also openly threaten violence,” the review states.
in Finland Last year, among individual municipalities, the most suspected hate crimes were reported in Helsinki, where 24 percent of all suspected hate crimes were recorded. Next, the most suspected hate crimes took place in Vantaa, Espoo, Turku and Tampere.
When the number of hate crime reports is compared to the number of inhabitants, Hamina and Varkaus rise past Helsinki to the dubious shared first place in the number of hate crimes.
However, Hamina and Varkaute have so few inhabitants that they end up at the top of the list in proportion to the number of inhabitants with low numbers of suspected crimes. 11 hate crime reports were recorded in both.
Previous years as usual, in the vast majority of suspected hate crimes, the motive was the victim’s ethnic or national background. A third more such crime reports were made than in 2020.
When hate crimes are examined by motive, different trends can be observed.
Last year, reports of hate crimes where the motive was the victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression also increased slightly. On the other hand, reports of hate crimes related to religion and belief and disability decreased.
The review’s information on hate crime does not form a comprehensive picture of hate crime, as only some of the crimes come to the attention of the police. In addition, even among reported suspected crimes, the motive for a hate crime may go unrecognized.
Criminal suspicions can also be found to be unfounded in a later legal process.
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