Finnish demonstrators attack refugees with stones and fireworks

Demonstrators threw stones and launched fireworks at a bus full of asylum seekers arriving at a reception center in the southern Finnish city of Lahti, Finnish media reported on Friday.

The attack is the latest sign of growing xenophobia in Finland and beyond, as European governments discuss how to handle the growing refugee crisis.

Between 30 and 40 demonstrators, one in a white robe similar to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan, waved the Finnish flag and shouted epithets at the bus during the attack late Thursday.

Some demonstrators also hurled stones and set off fireworks at the vehicle carrying 40 asylum seekers, including several young children, Finnish television station YLE said.

Meanwhile, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at another reception center in Kouvola, also in southern Finland, police said. There were no reported injuries in the incidents.

“The Finnish government strongly condemns last night's racist protests against asylum seekers who had entered the country,” the government said in a statement. “Violence or the threat of violence is always to be condemned.”

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said Thursday that a surge of right-wing extremism would hit the continent if the refugee crisis was not properly addressed.

“We have to make sure that those countries where people arrive are better placed to make sure people are registered, that people who don't have the right to asylum are returned swiftly,” he told BBC radio.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila this month offered to take in refugees at his home, a move that attracted international attention but also criticism in Finland.

“Sipila's noble-minded gesture was like a Christmas gift for human traffickers and refugees. The news about open doors in Finland have sent many young men on a journey towards the promised land,” Mika Niikko, a deputy from anti-immigrant party and coalition member The Finns, said last week in a statement.

The Finns lawmaker Olli Immonen has also been critical of Europe's handling of the refugee crisis and warned against “this nightmare called multiculturalism.”

“This ugly bubble that our enemies live in will soon enough burst into a million little pieces,” he posted on his Facebook page.

So far this year, more than 13,000 asylum seekers, most of them from Iraq, have come to Finland, compared to just 3,600 in the whole of last year.

In recent days, about 500 refugees per day have crossed the Finnish land border in Tornio, near the Arctic Circle, after a long journey through Sweden.

The Finnish government has launched random border checks and identity checks around the country amid the influx of refugees.

Finland was the only European Union state to abstain from this week's vote about relocating asylum seekers across member countries. It accepted its two percent share of 120,000 asylum seekers in Europe but said it was opposed to a mandatory quota system.

Al Jazeera and Reuters