Oulu|The hate crime investigator does not remember similar cases. The police chief sees the so-called copycat phenomenon.
The summary is made by artificial intelligence and checked by a human.
Supo warned in the spring about the threat of far-right terrorism in Finland.
There have been two similar stabbings in Oulu in less than a week.
In Finland, there are approximately 350 people targeted by the fight against terrorism, mainly the extreme right and radical Islamism.
Finnish Security Intelligence Service warned in his spring press conference about the heightened threat of far-right terrorism in Finland, and now two possible cases of it have been received from the same place in less than a week.
Supo says that there are approximately 350 persons targeted by the fight against terrorism in Finland. They mainly represent the extreme right and radical Islamism.
The ideological motive of both Oulu cases is not yet completely certain and supo does not comment on individual cases anyway. But it makes it clear that there are persons in Finland who have the ability and motivation to commit terrorist acts.
Supo does not comment on his operational activities, i.e. whether the cases in Oulu now cause a need for increased supervision. On a four-point scale, the threat assessment of terrorism in Finland is still level two, i.e. elevated, while the highest level is four.
According to it, the biggest threat is specifically caused by individual perpetrators and small groups, who are often inspired by previous actions. The suspect in the second case in Oulu is a minor. According to supo, it may indicate that the trend experienced in Europe, i.e. the radicalization of young people online, is also coming to Finland.
Supo estimates that the organized extreme right does not aim for terrorist activities in Finland. Instead, it creates a possible breeding ground for the radicalization of individuals.
The Oulu police are not investigating either case as having been committed with terrorist intent, but there are indications of a racist motive in both.
Chief of Police deputy, chief of police Sanna Heikinheimo states that it seems that the motive of the act was racist in the second case as well.
“Furthermore, there are indications that the act was copied from last week’s incident. Various acts of violence are often associated with the so-called copycat phenomenon. For example, after school shootings, threats to schools increase,” he says.
He also reminds that the disorderly behavior of young people is at a high level. He says that the Oulu police increased their presence in the area after the events.
And should the police have done something differently or are such acts preventable at all?
“Now it is only necessary to briefly state that there is not yet such accurate information about the events that there would be conditions to examine whether there was any indication from yesterday’s act in advance, on the basis of which the event could have been prevented,” he states.
Hate crimes has been followed at the Police University of Applied Sciences in Tampere for over twenty years.
“Clearly rare in light of police statistics,” says the hate crime investigator Jenita Rauta from two similar back-to-back stabbings.
The peak of statistical hate crimes was in 2015, when a large number of asylum seekers came to Finland, then the number decreased and has been on the rise again in recent years. Racism is the biggest motive for hate crimes.
“The reports show that hate crimes are mostly verbal insults, sometimes they are assaults. I don’t remember anything as serious as the one in Oulu,” says Rauta.
He reminds that there were somewhat similar features in the stabbings in Turku in 2017. For that, a Moroccan man who murdered two people and thought he was an ISIS warrior was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was convicted of crimes committed with terrorist intent.
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