Finland Times

 

Tapanila station in Helsinki. File Photo – Lehtikuva.

The recent rape in Tapanila has stoked up support for a citizens’ initiative proposing changes to the criminal law which would see foreigners deported if found guilty.

 

Support for the initiative showed a spike following news reports and police announcements on arrest of young foreigners accused of raping a woman. The number of pledges in support of the initiative rose by several thousand a day, whereas previously they had seen only a few dozen or hundred per day.

 

Support had also spiked in February after headlines of murder, the suspect of which was said to have used an interpreter during his processing. The initiative proposes, among other things, that convicted foreign criminals be deported, regardless of the length of their prison sentence.

 

By Thursday, the initiative had collected nearly 40,000 pledges, and the necessary number for the initiative to appear on the ballot is 50,000. Support for the initiative was under 2,000 by the beginning of February, even though the initiative began in November.

 

Media coverage and public debate on the impact of initiatives are now systematically monitored by the Kansalaisaloite.fi (citizens’ initiative) web service. Specialist Laura Nurminen says from the service’s new monitoring system, it is possible to observe how much support an initiative has on any given day.

 

“From [the service], responsible people can follow the effects of a campaign, or if an initiative has made the news. I would assume there is [an effect]. There are those initiatives which have spikes.”

 

Some days have seen significantly more support than average, Nurminen says.