What is Finnish Foreign Ministry afraid of?
Recently several blogs concerning the subject of the abducted Russian boy and his citizenship have been removed in Finland. The censorship happens due to the fact that the boy smuggled from Russia by Finnish diplomat Simo Pietilainen (proclaimed in Russia persona non-grata) has a Russian citizenship – the fact Finnish Foreign Ministry is trying to conceal.
http://rt.com/Top_News/2009-05-15/Russia_lashes_out_at_Finland_over_kidnapping.html?fullstory
“Russia lashes out at Finland over kidnapping
Moscow has filed a formal complaint to Helsinki after Finland's consulate general in St. Petersburg helped a Finnish citizen take his son out of Russia against both the will of his Russian mother and the law.
The Finnish Embassy in Russia has confirmed that the incident took place.
… Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his protest to his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb over the incident.
“In the wake of reports that Finnish citizen Paavo Salonen moved his son Anton, a Russian citizen, outside Russia, a protest was conveyed to Alexander Stubb and explanations demanded from the Finnish side. It was stated that the moving out of a child against the will of his mother, a Russian citizen, was a flagrant violation of Russian law, which implies criminal liability,” the Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement posted on Thursday said.”
After the incident the boy’s Russian mother followed her son, but was arrested in Finland. She was stripped of her custody and is allowed to see her son only a few hours a month under the supervision of the authorities. The mother and the son are not allowed to use their mother-tongue – Russian language to communicate. They are not allowed to pray either and the boy’s cross was taken off him, though the child was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church.
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=7222
04 May 2010, 12:41
“Russian woman's son in Finland is not permitted to pray, his cross was taken off him
Helsinki, May 4, Interfax – Finnish social workers forbade 7-year-old Anton, son of the Russian citizen Rimma Salonen, to pray, to make a sign of cross and took an Orthodox cross off him.
"I had a meeting with my son this week. Social workers told me I shouldn't pray with him before lunch as we used to do, we shouldn't make a sign of cross and they also said they had taken off Anton's cross," Salonen told Interfax.
In 2008, after divorcing Finn Paavo Salonen, Russian subject Rimma Salonen took their 5-year old son Anton to the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Several people, including the boy's father, kidnapped the child from Rimma on April 12, 2009. With the help of a Finnish general consulate official in Petersburg, the child was driven from Russia in a boot of the diplomatic car. “
No doubt the Russian mother has suffered from the discrimination, and both the mother and the child are victims of the Russophobic policy, conducted by certain political forces in Finland.
“Alexander Brod, a Moscow-based human rights activist, who lamented the fact that Finnish authorities turn a blind eye to facts of religious and racial hatred in their country. This is nothing but a violation of all the international norms, Brod stressed: As I see it, the court demonstrates a biased approach to the matter, Brod says, pointing to Friday’s decision to strip the child of an array of freedoms. Needless to say, this is a direct human rights violation, he states.”
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/05/02/7210265.html
“ After divorcing her husband in 2008 Rimma Salonen and her five-year-old son Anton returned to Russia. Several months later, the boy’s father abducted the child and with the assistance of a Finnish embassy employee secretly took him out of Russia in a diplomatic car. The high-profile case received extensive media coverage, was discussed at the top levels and caused the Russian Foreign Ministry to file a note of protest. The Finnish judges stayed deaf to the protests. Moreover, they refuse to recognize the boy’s Russian citizenship, even though he has a Russian passport. Human rights activist Alezander Brod says this sort of approach is convenient because a duel citizenship would force the Finnish lawyers to acknowledge that the father had no legal right to take the child out of Russia against his mother’s will. On this assumption the Russian Prosecutor-General’s investigating committee is seeking extradition of Paavo Salonen and lodged the relevant request in October last year. However, instead of cooperation, the Finnish authorities chose to accuse Rimma of child abduction, arrested her when she arrived in Finland to see her son and gave her an 18-month suspended sentence. The entire procedure took just a few days, whereas Rimma’s appeal against the court ruling has been under consideration for six months. As long as she is found guilty, Rimma Salonen cannot count on living with her son or see him without a police escort.”
Scandal in Finland is gathering pace.
It’s high time for the Finnish foreign minister to take responsibility and to draw appropriate conclusions instead of concealing facts, which inevitably leads to repressions, violation of human rights and restrictions regarding freedom of speech.
This kind of foreign policy based on provocations against Russia is not constructive. Yuschenkos’ time is over.
