The camp set up near the Helsinki Music Centre by activists of the Occupy Helsinki movement is relocating to the area near Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The City of Helsinki recently ordered the activists to move away from the Music Centre area. On Wednesday the activists said that they would set up a new camp next to Kiasma.
By late Wednesday evening the old camp had been partially dismantled and on Thursday morning the new one started taking shape next to Kiasma.
The Helsinki City Public Works Department has said that the Occupy Helsinki demonstration can continue somewhere else, but the city will not allow unauthorised fires, for instance.
The Occupy camp rose next to the Music Centre, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street campaign in late October. The Public Works Department issued the order to vacate on Friday last week. It plans to start improving the lawn in the area. Jari Fingeroos, who set up the earlier camp in the autumn, says that he plans to stay in the old camp. He sees it as a freedom of speech issue.
“The city has no right to define the limits of freedom of speech in this country. I do not believe that the police will support the city’s eviction decision. That is why I am staying here.”
Fingeroos admits that there were some problems during the six months that the old camp was up.
“There are the kinds of people to whom we were not able to communicate the significance of this camp well enough. Some have been angered at the existence of a camp like this, and have seen it as an eyesore”, Fingeroos says.
