The Facebook threats made against Finland’s Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors (Swedish People’s Party) have resulted in a legal action against a former non-aligned True Finns deputy councillor from Urjala.
The man is being charged with making an unlawful threat, aggravated defamation, public urging to commit a crime, and incitement to hatred against an ethnic group.
The man has confessed to having set up a Facebook site entitled: “I am prepared to do a couple of years of prison time for killing Astrid Thors!”
This is the first case in Finland in which a Facebook threat has led to criminal prosecution.
The charges against the man were brought by Finland's Deputy Prosecutor General Jorma Kalske. The case will be handled by the Pirkanmaa District Court.
Another defamation case related to Thors has come to nothing.
Kalske ordered the termination of an investigation of a case where an unlawful Facebook profile had been created in Thors’s name.
The culprit would be unlikely to be discovered as the social networking website in question is maintained in the United States.
Thors has repeatedly come in for criticism, and indeed for threats and hatemail, from among the section of the population that takes a very negative view of Finland's policies on immigration.
The opposition True Finns have campaigned in the past on an anti-immigration platform, but have done their best to distance themselves from the worst excesses of some of their supporters.
