Parliament The coron passport caused a change in the flood of messages, MPs were startled – “Many kinds of extremism seem to have found each other”

Deputies are accustomed to receiving a lot of daily contact from citizens on these issues. However, the corona passport and the debate surrounding it have caused an exceptionally wide flood of messages, say MPs interviewed by HS.

According to MPs, the e-mails on the subject have largely been messages of the same content sent in a wide distribution, some of which have been accusatory, at worst inappropriate or threatening.

“As a rule, the feedback seems to be pretty much written in the same formula. They usually refer to the unconstitutionality of the corona passport and, at worst, compare it even to Nazi German times and claim that it is against the Nuremberg acquis, ”MP Kim Berg (sd) says.

According to Berg, some of the mass mailings have been addressed to the entire Parliament, some to the members of the Social Affairs and Health Committee, which also prepared the legislation on the corona passport, including Berg. Some have also been personal.

HS: n the dozens of MPs interviewed have received dozens, at worst hundreds a day.

According to Berg, the flood of messages has at times been so intense that it has blocked email so that messages cannot be sent or received before the folder is emptied.

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There have been dozens of messages to MPs, at worst hundreds a day.

Messaging in addition to the number, there have been concerns about their content.

“I’ve been really shocked by the argument that has been used in them. The messages have headings like ‘It’s a war now’ ‘, Hilkka Kemppi (middle) says.

Kemppi, a member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, says he is concerned that the messages are not necessarily just statements made by individual active citizens. He believes that they may be based on actors outside Finland, or at least they have been influenced by international activities.

For example, members of the Council of Europe have received similar messages but only in English. Some messages received from parliamentarians have also praised the development of the rule of law in Poland and Hungary.

“There is a really high threshold behind suspecting such messages sent to MPs to be machined, but their consistency and scope have not been normal,” Kemppi says.

Similar he has previously seen floods of messages from the EU stimulus package and the foreign minister Pekka Haaviston (green) during the discussions on ministerial responsibility. This has also been reflected in the messages on the corona passport: in some, the structure of the messages has been the same as in previous messages, and even the contents of completely different topics may have been confused within the same messages.

“For example, the title may have been about the stimulus package and the content of the message then the corona passport,” Kemppi describes.

He also says he tried to respond to a few messages.

“The return reply messages have not been in any way a dialogue with my messages but have been the same monotonous copied text as the original message,” he says.

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“There are probably some who should report a crime, but I’ve experienced them so mechanized that I haven’t taken them personally.”

Email in addition, messages from some representatives have flooded the phone and social media channels.

Member of the Greens, like Berg, a member of the Committee on Social Affairs and Health Noora Koponen says that messages received via text message or Facebook, for example, have largely followed the same pattern as those received via e – mail.

Koponen in particular says that he is surprised that now messages have come from new directions, even from half-baked people. According to Koponen, the previously aggressive sending of e-mails has come largely from the far right.

“I myself am a former healthcare professional and have been in close contact with various actors in the welfare sector. It can now be seen that a considerable amount of participation has also been made from this sector in the dissemination of disinformation previously maintained by the far right, “says Koponen, who previously worked as a physiotherapist.

“With a corona passport, a variety of extremist movements seem to have found each other. The content of the messages has both far-right and left-wing features, ”Kemppi confirms Koponen’s findings.

Crime reports none of the representatives interviewed by HS has done so, although the content of some of the messages has led it to consider such.

“There are probably some who should report a crime, but I have experienced them so mechanized that I have not taken them personally,” Kemppi says.

Berg has been on the same lines. Koponen, for his part, says that once the situation has normalized, he intends to review the messages on the subject and assess whether there is a need for further action in their content.

“However, there has been no direct threat to life and health.”