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Finland faces wave of vigilante mobs targeting migrants
Fights, fury and the Ku Klux Klan: Finland faces wave of vigilante mobs targeting migrants as arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker for rape of 14-year-old schoolgirl pushes one town to the brink
- In the town of Kempele, tension between locals and asylum seekers is rising after a 14-year-old girl was raped
- Happened fortnight after youth migrant centre opened in town to mass opposition and 17-year-old refugee charged
- Across Finland similar cases have sparked panic, with human chains blocking refugees at the country's borders
- Even some MPs are demanding asylum seekers leave country and put an end to 'nightmare called multiculturalism'
Unrest: In the snow covered town of Kempele, 400 miles north of Helsinki, locals are angry after a youth migrant centre opened in the town and two weeks later a schoolgirl aged 14 was raped. The situation is mirrored around other parts of Finland where there have been protests against immigration. In Lahti, migrants arriving at military base were met by protesters, including a man dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member
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There is a sense of tension in the pretty, snow-covered Finnish town - an underlying fear which makes parents hold their children a little closer, and angry resentment towards the group of young men who arrived just a month ago.
Kemepele, almost 400 miles north of Helsinki, is usually a place where 17,000 unassuming townfolk while away the hours playing ice hockey.
But that peaceful existence has been ripped apart by the rape of a 14-year-old girl as she walked home on a Monday night a fortnight ago.
The alleged culprit is one of the young men living at a migrant centre, which locals did not want in the first place.
But far from being an anomaly, Kempele - which saw hundreds take to the streets in an anti-immigration march last weekend - has become a snapshot of a country where people patrol the streets in vigilante mobs, block people crossing the border and even dress as the Ku Klux Klan at angry protests against the influx of refugees.
The situation is not so tense in some parts of the country. MailOnline went 10 miles north of Kempele to Oulu where migrants at the Vallinkorva are living quietly and say they have been made to feel welcome in the town after fleeing the war-torn countries of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
And the country's Prime Minister Juha Sipilä has offered newcomers a warm welcome - and even said they can use one of his homes in Kempele, where he was born, to use as emergency accommodation.
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In Kempele, the rape of the schoolgirl, just a fortnight after the centre for young migrants opened, sent shockwaves through the community.
Rumours quickly spread around the town that two asylum seekers from Afghanistan had been arrested over the assault.
It has since emerged that police have arrested a 17-year-old boy at the centre, who is in custody awaiting trial.
It was the spark needed for those who had opposed the centre in the first place to take to the streets - as hundreds turned out for a protest march demanding it be closed immediately.
'Finland for the Finns! Close down the centre!’ they chanted.
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Dangerous: Tension in Kemepele is mirrored around Finland. This week in Kankaanpaa, 165 miles northwest of Helsinki, a building being used to house refugees was burned to the ground
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They marched from the town square to the municipal house, and on towards the immigration centre, with many clutching Finnish flags.
‘We decided to sing the Finnish anthem in front of the immigration centre,’ one of the marchers, Janne Halunen, who is also local councillor for the right-wing True Finns party, told MailOnline.
But there was no one there to hear them, as all 30 asylum seekers inside the centre had been temporarily evacuated for their own safety to avoid any further confrontations and inflame the situation.
They are back now - but the calls for the centre to be shut grow louder by the day.
Mr Halunen said: ‘It’s in the interests of the Kempele people that the centre is closed down. People genuinely feel threatened.
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Sex crime: A number of allegations of rape and sexual assault have been made against asylum-seekers around Finland, which have led to an anti-immigration feeling there. The day after Kempele, another girl, 14, was attacked in the southern town of Raisio, with police arresting a 19-year-old asylum-seeker. Two days later, an Afghan was jailed for raping a Finnish girl, 17, from Pori, and burning her alive
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This is not the only rape case involving a migrant and a young girl in recent months, and this was not the only angry protest against the migrants arriving in their thousands every month.
The day after the schoolgirl sex attack in Kempele, another 14-year-old girl was attacked in the southern town of Raisio. This time, the man arrested was a 19-year-old asylum seeker.
Two days later, Afghan Ramin Azimi was jailed for life for raping a 17-year-old Finnish girl from Pori and burning her alive.
The pair had been dating for a month before the girl decided to break up with her. The court heard how the girl had been out jogging when he approached her. She got into car voluntarily, before they got into a fight and she was badly injured as he tried to strangle her.
He then wrapped her in a blanket and took her to a deserted building, where he doused her in petrol and set her on fire. She was still alive.
Azimi, who was 10 years older, first claimed the girl had set herself on fire on purpose to commit suicide, but he was found guilty and jailed.
Across the country, these cases are sparking widespread panic: migrants arriving at the border are being met by human chains, telling them to go back; vigilante groups are patrolling the streets.
Newspapers are full of statistics about how an asylum seeker is eight times more likely to commit rape that a Finnish national, and increasing numbers of the country’s 5.5 million people are starting to feel at threat.
They may not be expecting the 190,000 asylum seekers of neighbouring Sweden, but Finland has said it is prepared to take 30,000 by the end of the year.
Some 2,000 people arrived in one week alone, compared to the 3,600 who applied for asylum in the country in the whole of 2014.
And Finland is now torn about what to do with these new arrivals, with the population split between those who want to welcome them – and those who want to keep them out.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3tk7744EI
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idiots like that ruined it for all other refugees 