By Jan Lundius
Helsinki, Jan 11 2016 (IPS)

The year 2015 was a sad one for journalists around the world, with approximately 60 journalists killed, more than 200 imprisoned and more than 400 exiled.

In many countries, people speaking up against abuse and violations have a rational fear for their lives and wellbeing. To address this issue, UNESCO and the Government of Finland will co-host a conference on journalists´ safety the week of International Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2016.

The choice of Finland to organize such an event is no mere coincidence. When Reporters Without Borders presented its World Press Freedom Index for 2015, Finland topped the list for the fifth year in a row. And Finland´s government has taken its commitment further by making transparency and information an institutional concern, for example by making broadband access a legal right and easing the way for citizens to participate in the legislative process through online means.

Is freedom of speech determined by culture? And, if so, did cultural forces help mold the Finnish government´s liberal attitude toward press freedom?
Often when rulers silence the media they do it in the name of security or preserving national culture or unity. So is freedom of speech determined by culture? And, if so, did cultural forces help mold the Finnish government´s liberal attitude toward press freedom?

Until 1809, Finland was part of Sweden, a country that in 1766 was the first nation in the world to abolish censorship and guarantee freedom of the press. But after subsequent conquest by the Russian Empire, growing Russian patriotism demanded a closer integration of Finland and, by the end of the 19th century, harsh censorship of the press was introduced. This and other measures, including Russian promotion of the Finnish language as a way to sever the country’s longstanding cultural ties with Sweden, fueled an already growing Finnish nationalism.

When the Russian tsar abdicated in 1917, the Finnish legislature declared independence, leading to a civil war between the country’s “Reds”, led by Social Democrats, and “Whites”, led by the conservatives in the Senate. Thirty-six thousand out of a population of 3 million died. The Reds executed 1,650 civilians, while the triumphant Whites executed approximately 9,000. The war resulted in an official ban on Communism, censorship of the socialist press and an increasing integration to the Western world economy. The new constitution established that the country would be bi-lingual, with both Finnish and Swedish taught in schools and at universities.

During World War II, harsh press censorship was introduced – this time by the Finnish government itself – as the country fought two wars against the Soviet Union and the subsequently fought to drive out its former German allies in those conflicts.

The development of the current Finnish freedom of speech probably has to be considered in relation to this arduous history, particularly the difficult aftermath of the wars with the Soviet Union and, through all of it, the Finnish people´s struggle to maintain their freedom and unique character as a nation.

Today, Finland has a lively press and a thriving culture production in both languages, even if Finnish people with Swedish as a mother tongue constitute only about 5 per cent of a population of 5.4 million. Even in the Internet Age, Finns remain avid newspaper readers, ranking first in the EU with almost 500 copies sold per day per 1, 000 inhabitants, surpassed only by Japan and Norway.

During the Cold War years, Finland’s efforts to cope with is proximity to Soviet Russia had grave repercussions on freedom of speech in the country. Due to Soviet pressure, some books were withdrawn from public libraries and Finnish publishers avoided literature that could cause Soviet displeasure. For example, the Finnish translation of Solzhenitsyn´s The Gulag Archipelago was published in Sweden. On several occasions, Moscow restricted Finnish politics and vetoed its participation in the Marshall Plan.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to Finland’s expanded participation in Western political and economic structures. Finland joined the EU in 1994 and the euro was introduced in 1999. Restrictions on the media were relaxed and today, probably in reaction to its previous experiences with censorship, Finland is widely recognized having the most extensive press freedom of any country.

However, the rise of anti-immigrant political sentiment, as evidenced by the rise of the Finns´ Party, has cast a pall over popular media. Now the country’s second largest party after success in this year’s elections, the Finns´ Party combines left-wing economic policies with conservative social values, as well as a heavy dose of xenophobia, euro scepticism and Islamophobia, leading it to attract nationalistic fringe groups that are vociferous in public media.

One example is the group Suomen Sisu, which has an openly crude racial approach, disguised as “ethnopluralism,” an ideology stating that ethnic groups have to be kept separated and that Swedish speaking Finns’ influence on politics and culture has to be limited and that immigration has to be radically restricted, or even halted completely.

Finland´s most popular web site Homma is spreading this message, which also accuses Finnish media of being left-leaning and eroding Finnish national pride. The Finns’ Party´s leader, Timo Soini, is currently the country´s foreign minister and vice prime minister. While the party occasionally reacts harshly to criticism in media it states that it honors freedom of the press. Even when Soini was recently was attacked by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, he stated that it was quite OK since it was an expression of the press freedom.

Nevertheless, with Finland now scheduled to host an international conference on press freedom, we should be watchful of the dangers to free expression that lurk in uninhibited nationalism and xenophobia. Nordic people often take their excellent record in human rights for granted and, in so doing, dismiss these dangers. Let’s hope that the May conference will serve as a reminder to us all that freedom of the press and of expression is something that has to be jealously guarded and vigorously protected through thick and thin.

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Excerpt:

The one-day summit on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER) held in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 31 failed to make commitments to serious action to fight the negative impacts of global warming. Credit: Leehi Yona/IPS

By Leehi Yona
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sep 1 2015 (IPS)

After a one-day summit in the U.S. Arctic’s biggest city, leaders from the world’s northern countries acknowledged that climate change is seriously disrupting the Arctic ecosystem, yet left without committing themselves to serious action to fight the negative impacts of global warming.

The Aug. 31 summit on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER)’, was organised by the U.S. State Department and attended by dignitaries from 20 countries, including the eight Arctic nations – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States.

Political leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama, who urged Arctic nations to take bolder action as the summit ended, came out with strong words, but stakeholders from civil society and scientific groups said the outcome came short of the tangible action needed.“This statement (from the one-day GLACIER Arctic summit] unfortunately fails to fully acknowledge one of the grave threats to the Arctic and to the planet – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels” – Ellie Johnston, World Climate Project Manager at Climate Interactive

The summit attracted the attention of environmental and indigenous groups, which criticised Obama’s reputation as a climate leader in the face of allowing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic.

Numerous protests and acts of non-violent civil disobedience in recent months have attempted to block oil company Shell from drilling; the company is currently active off the Alaskan coast.

“The recent approval of Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plans is a prime example of the disparity between President Obama’s strong rhetoric and increasing action on climate change and his administration’s fossil fuel extraction policies,” said David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International.

All participating countries signed a joint statement on climate change and its impact on the Arctic, after the initial reluctance of Canada and Russia, which eventually added their names.

“We take seriously warnings by scientists: temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at more than twice the average global rate,” the statement read, before going on to describe the wide range of impacts felt by Arctic communities’ landscapes, culture and well-being.

“As change continues at an unprecedented rate in the Arctic – increasing the stresses on communities and ecosystems in already harsh environments – we are committed more than ever to protecting both terrestrial and marine areas in this unique region, and our shared planet, for generations to come.”

However, the statement lacked concrete commitments, even on crucial topics like fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic, leaving climate experts with the feeling that it could have been more ambitious or have offered more specific, tangible commitments on the part of countries.

“I appreciate the rhetoric and depth of acknowledgement of the climate crisis,” the World Climate Project Manager at Climate Interactive, Ellie Johnston, told IPS. “Yet this statement unfortunately fails to fully acknowledge one of the grave threats to the Arctic and to the planet – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.”

“This is particularly relevant as nations and companies jockey for access to drilling in our historically icy Arctic seas which have now become more accessible because of warming,” she said. “Drilling for fossil fuels leads to more warming, which leads to more drilling. This is one feedback loop we can stop.”

Oil and gas companies were encouraged – but not required –to voluntarily take on more stringent policies and join the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, an initiative to help companies reduce their emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressed participants – members from indigenous communities, government representatives, scientists, and non-governmental organizations – at the opening of the summit. “The Arctic is in many ways a thermostat,” he said. “We already see [it] having a profound impact on the rest of the planet.”

Kerry also attempted to drum up action ahead of the COP21 United Nations climate change negotiations in Paris this December, urging governments to “try to come up with a truly ambitious and truly global climate agreement.”

He added that the Paris conference “is not the end of the road […] Our hope is that everyone can leave this conference today with a heightened sense of urgency and a better understanding of our collective responsibility to do everything we can to deal with the harmful impacts of climate change.”

In a closing address to summit participants, President Obama repeatedly said “we are not doing enough.” He outlined the stark impacts of a future with business-as-usual climate change: thawing permafrost, forest fires and dangerous feedback loops. “We will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair … any leader willing to take a gamble on a future like that is not fit to lead,” he stated.

However, neither Kerry nor Obama acknowledged, as many environmental groups have pointed out, that the United States’ current greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitment falls nearly halfway short of what the country must do in order to stay within the Paris conference goal of a 2^oC warming limit.

While participants emphasised engagement from affected communities, the summit itself did not manifest engagement with those communities: less than one-third of the panellists and presenters were either indigenous or female, and only one woman of colour was present.

“It would have been nice to hear more from indigenous women or women of colour,” Princess Daazrhaii, member of the Gwich’in Nation and strong advocate for the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, told IPS. “The Arctic is more diverse than what I felt like was represented at the conference.”

“As life-givers and as mothers, many of us nurse our children. We know for a fact that women in the Arctic are more susceptible to the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are bound to the air we breathe. Violence against women is another issue that I feel gets exacerbated when there are threats to our ecosystem.”

All individuals talked to appreciated the conference’s emphasis on climate change as a significant problem, yet all of them also expressed a desire for the United States – and governments around the world – to do more.

“[Climate change] is what brings human beings together,” Daazrhaii said. “We’re all in this together. And we have to work on this together.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Excerpt:

Activists at a G20 protest say no to 'welfare for the rich’. Credit: Tim and Selena Middleton/CC-BY-2.0

By Linus Atarah
HELSINKI, Oct 6 2012 (IPS)

The City of Helsinki added its voice to a growing global call against corporate tax evasion with the passage of a new responsibility strategy that leaves no room for unethical business practices.

Last week, 85 city councillors from Finland’s capital voted to sever business ties with companies operating in, or having links to, tax havens.

The resolution – which passed 78-4 in the City Council, the country’s highest decision-making body in charge of local affairs – acknowledged that tax evasion undermines the capacity of municipalities to provide social services.

The council also recognised that tax havens deprive developing countries of vital tax revenues and denies them the opportunity to benefit fully from world trade.

Tax havens are either territories or countries whose authorities allow businesses or individuals to deposit their wealth at very low tax rates or, in some cases, pay no taxes at all.

The London-based Tax Justice Network has identified 10 of the most attractive tax havens around the world, including Bahrain, the Cayman Islands, Jersey, Singapore and Switzerland.

Tax havens are quickly becoming an election issue here, as the country prepares to head to the polls for municipal elections in three weeks. Minister of Finance, Jutta Urpilainen of the Social Democratic Party, flagged the topic during a parliamentary discussion Thursday by supporting the proposal that municipalities boycott companies operating in tax havens.

Protecting the welfare state

The recent decision means Helsinki will no longer provide procurement contracts to companies whose operations are located in tax havens.

With a budget of about four billion euros, Helsinki is Finland’s biggest consumer of goods and services but it must now be more wary of who it chooses to do business with by demanding that companies reveal where they operate.

Taxes from enterprises are the primary source of income for Finnish municipalities, enabling them to provide public services such as education, health, housing and care for the elderly.

“Companies operating through tax havens pose a lethal threat to the welfare state in Finland and in all countries, especially in developing countries,” according to the resolution’s author, Thomas Wallgren, a Social Democratic councillor who has been leading the charge against tax havens.

“They also distort fair competition between companies, thereby threatening the survival of local and national small and medium-sized companies,” Wallgren told IPS.

He cited the example of Accra Breweries in Ghana, owned by South Africa’s SAB Miller. For five consecutive years, this multi-billion-dollar company paid no taxes at all to the Ghanaian government, while people who sold empty bottles on the streets paid, and continue to pay, value-added tax and municipal tax.

Implementation of the city council’s resolution may still run up against obstacles, according to legal experts here, who say the issue is compounded by the fact that European Union competition laws do not allow companies to be denied public procurement contracts on the basis of their location in tax havens.

Murky estimates

“The amount of money in tax havens is a big question mark,” Matti Kohonen, a researcher with the Tax Justice Network, told IPS. “We live in a world of high financial secrecy, which is a direct cause of the financial crisis. We don’t know where the money is and that is a very serious problem,” Kohonen said.

He estimates that global financial transactions that are either illicit, or involve some element of criminality or tax evasion, are in the order of one trillion dollars annually, about one-tenth of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP).

The lost revenue stemming from these actions is somewhere close to 100 billion dollars, the amount the United Nations says is required to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals.

The Tax Justice Networks also estimates that 21 to 36 trillion dollars, about two to three times the GDP of the U.S., are hidden in tax havens.

Transfer pricing

According to Kohonen, another common method for avoiding taxes is through transfer pricing, a price-setting mechanism for selling goods or services between different departments of the same company or between a parent company and its subsidiary.

An estimate released two years ago by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which sets the tax rules for transfer pricing, says this practice constitutes 70 percent of world trade.

This year the Finnish Tax Administration reported that the government loses 320 million euros of tax revenue annually due to price manipulations in transfer pricing. But Kohonen says that may only be the “tip of the iceberg” because most firms operating in tax havens are shrouded in secrecy.

Rather than have global transfer rules decided by the OECD, Kohonen believes it would be far more democratic for the U.N. to determine these regulations.

“It is a scandal that we have rules that govern world trade but no rules for the world of taxation apart from the rich countries’ lobby group, which is the OECD. We need multilateral rules or some other rules on how to tax multinationals,” he stressed.

Global movement

Helsinki’s initiative is not an isolated case but part of a global campaign to galvanise a groundswell of public support that could in turn create sufficient political will to take action against tax havens.

“The whole point of the campaign is to put additional pressure on national authorities, stock exchange regulators and on the European Union to have more stringent requirements for multinational companies,” Kohonen told IPS.

He says Helsinki’s initiative comes hard on the heels of similar measures taken in two Swedish cities, Malmö and Kalmar, as well as the municipality of Ulstein in Norway, all in an attempt to rein in the activities of tax evading companies.

Eight regions in France, including its wealthiest region, Île-de-France, have recently declared themselves ‘tax haven free zones’.

In spite of the legal obstacles impeding the implementation of Helsinki’s city council decision, Wallgren said many other Finnish municipalities have been encouraged by the momentum and are following suit. The decision is “catching on like wild fire” around cities and municipalities, he said.

“The fight against the tax havens will be a long one but because it is also a fight for the survival of the welfare state it is worth fighting,” he added.

Kohonen likened the current movement in Finland to the Jubilee Debt Campaign of 1990, which forced developed countries to reduce poor countries’ debt.

“Once it becomes the focus of millions of people around the globe, politicians can no longer avoid the problem,” he said.

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