December 6th is the Finnish independence day. For most of my life that has meant a day off from work and a somewhat boring official party event on TV where the president shakes hands with guests for hours on end. Some people go and take candles and flowers to the graves of their relatives and a good portion of the day is dedicated to remembering those who have passed and those who fought for our independence during times when it was under threat. Veterans of our wars, particularly the second world war, are held in high regard and given proper appreciation on this day. As they should be.

However, dating back to roughly 10 years ago, this day has also become a day for the far right fascists and neonazis to march in Helsinki. With all of the western world taking more and more turns towards totalitarianism and racist policies, Finland is following suit. This infuriates me and makes me feel embarrassed.

The pattern of action has become one where the nazis hold off on their official announcement of where and when exactly they will do their marching so as to make it more difficult for the counterprotestors (which there are plenty of, luckily) to plan theirs accordingly. This also means that since the nazis put in their demonstration notices first, the finnish police have systematically denied the counterprotestors access to the area and their official reasoning for it is a “safety for public health”, worded in various ways. Since the police also knows that it won’t matter if they do that - as we will counter protest anyway - this method allows the police to then come in in great numbers and give official protection. To the nazis.

It’s worth mentioning that over the last few years there have been several cases of leaked footage and information about several members of the police being members of various online far right groups as well as their own closed social media groups in which they have shared racist material and “jokes”. It is not without reason people view the police as a racist organisation and one that does very little to weed out the bad elements within its own ranks.

Going back to the nazi march and our counterprotest to it, this year the police showed up in greater numbers than ever before. I was present at the event for a few hours and saw, by my estimates, several dozens of police, several dozens of border control officials (for some reason), at least four police officers on horses and also several K-9 units. Some officers had crowd control weapons on them. All of them had crowd control gear from helmets to padded clothing and boots etc. All this to make sure that those nazis who were marching would be safe and protected. I don’t use the word “nazi” here lightly, either, it was documented very clearly on photos and videos how some of them held their hands up in the nazi salute as they were marching. I see no problem with associating everyone on that march with that ideology after that. Guilty by association seems entirely fair in this instance. Those who are older probably remember how rented VHS tapes had the classic ad in the beginning: “You wouldn’t steal a car”. Well, you certainly wouldn’t march with nazis by accident.

Prior to the events of last friday, there was plenty of talk about the upcoming march in the media. Plenty of people had huge problem with it and called it out for what it was. That said, there were also no shortage of nazi apologists and those who saw no problem with it and would claim “freedom of speech” as is the tradition by those who like to downplay racism at every turn.

Further, one of the currently ruling political parties in our government has been riddled with one scandal after the other concerning racism and their members being part of various hate groups. One of their politicians announced ahead of time that he would be attending the march and giving a speech at it. Rightfully, plenty of people took huge issue with this but said party leader (and also our current minister of treasury) said they can do whatever they want and there is no problem with. Other members referred, again, to freedom of speech and the speaker of the house (who has been convicted of “inciting against a group of people, essentially our hate crime law) said that it’s unclear if there even are any nazis present and that people are making baseless accusations. All this is gaslighting of course.

Well, their politician ended up marching right next to the leader of openly fascist party leader who is also openly and without shame a self announced racist and “ethnonationalist”. He then gave a speech at the event in which he said how those who accuse them of being nazis are being untrue. A seemingly unrealistically stupid timeline but here we are.

At the event, initially, I was allowed to go wherever I wanted. Pretty quickly though I was also shoved away by a police officer who wouldn’t tell me why and the huge horses they had would walk past me so that I and other photographers present would essentially be forced to lean against a railing so as to avoid contact with the animals. After this, the police announced over megaphones who they are shutting the counterprotest down and people are forced to move and if we wouldn’t, they’d arrest us. They then began herding people away and while most of them were fairly polite about it, several officers clearly enjoyed the authority and power as they were yelling at people and in some instances pushing them to the ground. After they got people to move, they formed a human police wall on several different locations throughout the area and kept yelling at people.

In the end, they arrested dozens of counter protestors and let the nazis salute freely. The police chief who wasn’t present at the event afterwards issued a statement saying how they did in fact use physical force to deal with people but only because they themselves were attacked and their clothes being ripped etc. From what I saw at the event, this seems like, at best, a gross exaggeration of the events. The police were forcefully removing people and pushing people, including the elderly. In my opinion the sheer excessive presence of the police alone was a big driver in the behaviour and response they got from the protestors. Prior to the event, we knew for a fact that there will be plenty of nazi sympathy at the march and they will proud about it - and this turned out to be exactly the case. Protecting that with overwhelming government force is extremely disappointing and frustrating.

It is beyond my comprehension how we in 2024 have a situation in Finland where public money is being used to deploy a huge police and border officer army to disperse people who are against nazis marching the street. But that is the de facto reality of the situation. The police have and will hide behind “proper procedure” and because in order to counter protest, one needs to know where the nazis will be at, this loop of police action and response is where we find ourselves in. This also means that unless something changes drastically, the police will keep protecting the nazis in the years to come. Nothing the police have said indicates otherwise in any way.

It seems to me however that once a person at a march puts their hand up in a nazi salute, that would easily be enough of a reason to shut the whole thing down instantly. That is what would happen in Germany and I think it’s not unreasonable to say that they have fairly good insight on why they choose to do that over there. Our police have consciously chosen to allow this however.

That is shameful.