Finland has taken a decisive anti-immigration turn after the attack in Turku on August 18, in which two people died and 18 were wounded, like reported by neweurope.eu.
According to the YLE News Agency, the Finnish coalition government is planning to scale up immigration controls for undocumented migrants and increase penalties for people who assist them.
The far-right populist Minister for European Affairs, Sampo Terho, is advocating changes in citizenship law and wants dual citizens that are found guilty of a terrorist act to be stripped of their citizenship. That measure follows in the footsteps of the UK and Germany, although similar plans in France were abandoned.
Terho also wants the criminalization of concealment or abetment of illegal immigrants.
Terho is part of a True Finns Party splinter group called Blue Reform. Their parliamentary group lends their support to the government and are represented in the cabinet although they were elected on a True Finns ticket. The True Finns are no longer represented in the cabinet.
The leader of Blue Reform’s parliamentary group Simon Elo made clear on Thursday that he also wants a review of the Aliens Act to allow authorities to strip the residence permits, ban entry into the country, and rescind the refugee status of individual migrants.
Following the attacks in Turku, the government has announced €12 million in supplementary funds the police and the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) and €5 for the Ministry of Justice.
