| Jussi Halla-aho | |
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Jussi Halla-aho in 2006. |
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| Born | 27 April 1971 Tampere, Finland |
| Nationality | Finland |
| Education | Ph.D. (slavist) |
| Alma mater | University of Helsinki |
| Occupation | Member of Parliament, linguist, blogger |
| Known for | Criticism of multiculturalism Criticism of humanitarian immigration Criticism of Islam |
| Home town | Helsinki |
| Political party | True Finns |
| Religion | Agnostic atheism[1] |
| Spouse | Hilla Halla-aho[2][3] |
| Children | two daughters (born 2003 and 2004) and a son (born 2008)[2][4][5][6] |
| Website | |
| Jussi Halla-aho – Halla-aho's personal homepage (English) Scripta – Halla-aho's blog (Finnish) |
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Jussi Kristian Halla-aho (born 27 April 1971 in Tampere[5]) is a Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician for the True Finns party who has become well known for his essays criticising the humanitarian immigration and multiculturalism policies adopted in Finland.[7][8][9] According to the newspaper Aamulehti, he is the best-known political blogger in Finland.[10]
Halla-aho was elected to the Helsinki City Council in 2008. He became an MP in the Finnish parliament in 2011. In the parliament he was made chairman of the Administration Committee, which deals with bills concerning immigration.[11]
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Halla-aho was elected a member of Helsinki City Council in the 2008 municipal elections as a candidate of the True Finns party,[7][12] although he was not a member of the party until 2010. In the 2008 elections, he was the 18th most popular candidate in the entire country[13] and the second most popular candidate of the True Finns party after the party leader Timo Soini.[14] Halla-aho won the largest number of personal votes for the party in Helsinki.[15]
Halla-aho has stated that he became politically active because finds the Finnish immigration policy a problem[16] and that Europe is heading towards a catastrophe because of massive immigration.[17] Halla-aho supports the welfare state and in respect to the economic policy he places himself on the left side of the political spectrum,[15] even though he has told that if he had to choose between left-wing and right-wing in totality he would choose the right-wing.[3]
Halla-aho was elected into parliament in 2011. His vote share was the sixth highest in the country and the second highest within his party.[18]
Halla-aho maintains a blog titled Scripta that deals with issues such as ”immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance, racism, freedom of speech and political correctness”.[19] His blog has between 3,000 and 6,000 readers a day.[20]
According to Halla-aho the biggest problem in the immigration due to humanitarian causes is the large amount of immigrants in relation to the resources used to integrate newcomers.[21] He has stated that a minority group whose integration has failed everywhere is the Muslims that come from certain parts of the world. According to Halla-aho the cultures that fail to integrate are often cultures that respect force, unlike the Western civilisation. As long as the immigrants stick to the cultural characteristics of their countries of origin, their isolation within the society in the destination country is maintained. Therefore their adaptation is not possible which creates problems such as social exclusion and ethnic ghettoisation.[22] He has stated that positive discrimination and privileges due to culture or nationality should not be allowed. According to Halla-aho, criticising "totalitarian fascist ideologies like political Islam" should not be considered racism and that facts cannot be criminalised.[23]
According to Halla-aho, immigration is a taboo in Finland.[24] He has disclosed that he has received death threats because of his web columns.[3][10]
After delaying their decision for several times[25] The Finnish Green Women's Association announced 18 November 2008 that they have requested the Finnish police to begin criminal investigation on Halla-aho.[26] The Green Women's Association's leader Heli Järvinen claims that Halla-aho's texts are not simply expressions of freedom of speech and bona fide criticism of multiculturalism but they incite to raping and hatred.[27] Halla-aho has denied this and told that he opposes violence against women.[27] In December 2008, Finnish police began the investigation on Halla-aho for incitement against an ethnic group because of his texts (see section below).[28][29]
Halla-aho has denied that he is against foreigners. He maintains that he is simply “critical of immigration”.[7] According to Halla-aho he has received positive feedback also from immigrants.[3]
In 2009, Halla-aho published a collection of his web columns titled Kirjoituksia uppoavasta Lännestä (Writings from the sinking West or Writings about the sinking West) in print. The book's first edition was sold out in three days.[30]
On 27 March, 2009, the Helsinki District Court ordered Halla-aho to trial on charges of ethnic agitation as well as breach of the sanctity of religion.
The charges arose after Halla-aho posted remarks related to the matter of Seppo Lehto on the Internet. In the course of the remarks, Halla-aho said the prophet Muhammad was a paedophile, and Islam is a religion of paedophilia, because Muhammad had intercourse with his 9-year-old wife and according to Sunnah Mohammed's life is exemplary in every way. He also asked if it could be stated that robbing passersby and living on taxpayers' expense are cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Somalis. This was stated in sarcastic response to a Finnish columnist that wrote that drinking excessively and fighting when drunk were cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Finns.[31][32]
On 8 September, 2009, the District Court convicted Halla-aho of disturbing religious worship, and ordered him to pay a fine of 330 euros.[33] The charge of ethnic agitation was dismissed. In October 2010 the Court of Appeal agreed with the District Court's conviction.[34] Both the prosecutor and Halla-aho appealed the case to the Supreme Court.[35] The Supreme Court granted a leave to appeal in May 2011, and the case is now pending Supreme Court hearing.[36]
In May 2011, Halla-aho announced that he will not be available for interviews or comments to the Finnish newspaper Aamulehti because of a photograph of Halla-aho the newspaper had published. Halla-aho claimed that the newspaper was using intentionally bad-looking photographs of him.[37]
In September 2011 Halla-aho wrote in Facebook that Greece's debt problems cannot be resolved without a military junta.[38] He soon retracted the comment, clarifying that his intention was merely to point out that making necessary but unpopular decicions is not easy in a democracy.[39] Timo Soini, the leader of the True Finns party, demanded a temporary suspension of Halla-aho from the parliamentary group.[40] In the end the parliamentary group unanimously (Halla-aho himself included) suspended Halla-aho for two weeks, although Soini had initially called for a month-long suspension.[41][42]
Halla-aho is a Ph.D. and has written his dissertation about historical nominal morphology of Old Church Slavonic.[7][43]
Halla-aho studied at the University of Helsinki from 1995 to 2000. During his post-graduate period (2000–2006) he worked at the Department of Slavonic and Baltic Studies as a researcher and teacher of Old Church Slavic.[4] Halla-aho has published two articles in scientific journals, has been one of the editors selection of papers by linguistics from several countries and written Old Church Slavic Manual, which is used at the University of Helsinki.[4] Halla-aho's scientific interests include comparative Indo-European linguistics, especially nominal morphology and theoretical questions related to the principles of reconstruction, Old Church Slavic, historical morphology of Slavic languages, Gothic and Phrygian languages.[4]
Since April 2007 Halla-aho has been working on, together with translator Juri Zub, a Ukrainian-Finnish dictionary, funded by the Finnish Cultural Fund.[4][7]
Halla-aho grew up in Tampere.[7] His parents had moved there from Alajärvi.[2] He lived in Tampere for 24 years.[4] During the 1980s he travelled to the Soviet Union with his father who was a bus driver and it was the spark for his anti-leftist convictions.[7] When Halla-aho was young he worked as a waiter.[7] When conscripted, instead of military service he chose civilian service. He later expressed regret at his decision, calling the choice a "stupid political protest", and voicing support for the present conscription system.[44] He applied for the University of Helsinki in 1995[7] and moved to Helsinki.[4]
Halla-aho lives in Eira in Helsinki with his wife Hilla Halla-aho and their three children.[7] He met his wife in connection with a university project.[7] Halla-aho has said that his children and family are the main reason why he takes part in social debate.[24] Halla-aho's hobbies include reading J. R. R. Tolkien, astronomy as well as pistol and rifle shooting.[5] He is a member of Suomen Sisu, an association that seeks to promote Finnish nationalism.[45]
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