Finland has made international headlines as xenophobic protest against arriving refugees took place on Thursday in the city of Lahti in southern Finland. Smoke torches were lit up while fireworks were shot towards the busses carrying the refugees. Man dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfit holding the Finnish flag was also seen in the crowd, which got many large news outlets like BBC and The Washington Post to report the event on their websites.
Around ten busses carrying refugees were heading to a recently emptied garrison as around 50 protesters began causing the problems. No refugees were injured, but the situation was reportedly threatening and the busses had many young children on-board. Aggressions were also committed towards Red Cross workers.
The detail that truly broke the international news threshold was the person dressed in the KKK-outfit holding the Finnish flag. During Friday the BBC’s article about the event was amongst the most popular articles on their site. The event was also googled so often that the search engine began suggesting the term “KKK” as the first choice when writing Finland on the search bar.
Finland’s Foreign Minister Timo Soini from the Finns party described the event as having nothing good in it and said that “Ku Klux Klan is a racist and misanthropic organisation. Connecting the Finnish flag to the organisation is sickening in my opinion”.
Today the Finnish police have released a statement where they ask for people with any information regarding the event to contact the police. They are especially looking for any photo or video material that people may have of the protest and information regarding the identity of the man dressed in the KKK outfit.