Perussuomalaiset MP convicted of ethnic agitation again

The Oulu District Court on Thursday sentenced Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party) lawmaker Sebastian Tynkkynen to pay a 50-day fine, about 4,050 euros, for anti-Muslim agitation, local media reported.

The verdict applied to the text and images shared by Tynkkynen from the populist Perussuomalaiset in his Facebook account in 2016.

Tynkkynen, aged 30, posted pictures of alleged perpetrators of terrorist attacks and stated in the title that "they have one thing in common: they all serve Allah."

According to the verdict, Tynkkynen's viewpoint of the Islamic group was a "deliberate, racist and disparaging" hate speech, which was generally directed at all Muslims, and likely to incite contempt and even hatred based on religious intolerance toward the Islamic group.

Therefore, the district court ordered Tynkkynen to remove the posts from social media and pay the fine.

This was not the first verdict Tynkkynen received. He was convicted of ethnic agitation against Muslims and sentenced a 50-day fine in January 2017 for another posting which claimed "the less Muslims in Finland, the safer."

According to national broadcasting Yle, Tynkkynen will probably receive a third court decision, as he was also suspected of ethnic incitement against a group of people in his Facebook posts in 2017. The case has been already passed from police to the district prosecutor for consideration of charges.

Born in 1989, Tynkkynen was elected member of Finnish Parliament in April 2019. He has been chairman of the Perussuomalaiset youth league for five years and the third vice chairman of the Perussuomalaiset for four years.