Finland’s Deputy PM apologizes for racist comments

Riikka Purra has refused to resign following the discovery of her controversial comments online

Finland’s far-right Deputy Prime Minister Riikka Purra has issued an apology for “stupid social media comments” she wrote 15 years ago that contained a torrent of racist and violent statements aimed at immigrants and other minorities.

Purra, who leads the nationalist, anti-immigration Finns Party, which came second in April’s elections in the Nordic country, was among the members of her party who secured key cabinet positions in the new conservative government led by Prime Minister Petter Orpo.

Purra, who serves as Finland’s Finance Minister in addition to being its deputy leader, said in posts on Twitter that she is “not a perfect person” and that she has “made mistakes,” after the offensive blog posts she’d authored were unearthed by Finnish media.

“If they gave me a gun, there’d be bodies on a commuter train,” Purra wrote in one post-dated September 25, 2008, apparently in objection to people of an immigrant background she observed while on a train. Another post mentioned “Turkish monkeys,” while one also contained a Finnish racial slur in reference to black people she saw selling items on the street while visiting Barcelona.

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Purra did not initially claim responsibility for the blog posts but on Tuesday admitted that she was the author, stressing that her views have changed in the years that followed. “I do not accept any kind of violence, racism or discrimination,” she said.

“Our immigration policy is legitimate and legal, and there is nothing wrong or suspicious about it,” she added.

Finnish Prime Minister Orpo tweeted on Tuesday that Purra’s apology had struck “the right solution” and that the country’s government, which is still in its infancy, “will not fall here” despite condemnation from opposition and some coalition figures. Orpo’s coalition is composed of politicians from four parties, and has promised tighter immigration rules as part of its program for government.

Speaking at the NATO summit in Lithuania, with his comments reported-on by the Guardian on Tuesday, Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto said that his government “would be wise to have a clear zero tolerance for racism.”

Last month, Purra’s Finns Party colleague Vilhelm Junnila issued his resignation as economy minister after it emerged he’d made sympathetic comments about Adolf Hitler during a speech at an event attended by Neo-Nazis. He also called for mass abortions in Africa to alleviate the climate crisis.

Last week, Finland’s Interior Minister Mari Rantanen – also of the Finns Party – was forced to deny media reports that she subscribed to a conspiracy theory which holds that Finns are being ‘replaced’ by other races.