I was asked by Phil of Fin­land for Thought to wri­te somet­hing about my cur­rent situa­tion invol­ving the police and the ongoing inqui­ry into my (alle­ged) defa­ma­tion of character[alaviite]Thanks to Ant­ti or more speci­fical­ly to his Scot­tish friend for the legal term in English for kun­nian­louk­kaus.[/alaviite], in English.

Back in Novem­ber I hap­pe­ned to hear about the scan­da­lous events sur­roun­ding the ele­men­ta­ry school of Kori­vaa­ra; appa­rent­ly, the children in the school were being ter­ro­rized by a deeply reli­gious head­mas­ter and his fel­low teac­hers (sum­ma­rized in English by The Butt Ugly Weblog).I’ve recor­ded some of the news cove­ring the issue by Kaleva.plus; so far Fin­nish only, sor­ry. I was amazed by not only such events being pos­sible in modern-day Fin­land, but by the fact that the who­le issue see­med to cause not­hing more than a few head­li­nes and some sha­king of heads in dis­be­lief. #

I wit­nes­sed head­mas­ter Pöy­ry him­self dis­miss all char­ges against him, appea­ling - in a man­ner which to me could not have been more dis­gus­ting - to the fact that the children had “repea­ted­ly given him good feed­back”.The same repul­si­ve the­me of the children “pro­ving” Pöy­ry’s innocence came up again after the big­gest stir had pas­sed. (That’s what children go to school for, to give their teac­hers gra­des, right?) #

The children’s parents, who came forward with their wor­ries about what’s going on in their school, have repor­ted the children as being frigh­te­ned for them­sel­ves and their loved ones (for the chance of going to Hell, IIRC) and having prayed com­pul­si­ve­ly as their means of trying to make it bet­ter. This to me spel­led the children had been seve­re­ly brainwas­hed and mani­pu­la­ted, thus making any refe­rences to their “liking” their head­mas­ter not­hing more than expres­sions of deeply roo­ted fear of cri­ticizing his aut­ho­ri­ty. #

And not­hing hap­pe­ned. The issue was bounced around by aut­ho­ri­ties, until the report by an inde­pen­dent psyc­ho­lo­gist, pro­ving the children suf­fer from anxie­ty and fear, was dis­mis­sed by the sta­te pro­vincial office of Oulu, and Pöy­ry along with the rest of the school per­son­nel was basical­ly clea­red of almost any wrong­doing. #

But my peak of tole­rance had alrea­dy been reac­hed. I had pos­ted my rough idea of what I think of Pöy­ry and his “met­hods of upbrin­ging” onto my blog, not once but many times. I’d said it straight as well as indi­rect­ly. #

Then yes­ter­day, I got an e-mail from a police officer of the city of Oulu police, infor­ming of me of an inqui­ry for defa­ma­tion of cha­rac­ter, reques­ted by Pöy­ry. In addi­tion to tel­ling me the local (Jyväs­ky­lä) police would inter­ro­ga­te me about this, the­re was a demand for the mate­rial regar­ding Pöy­ry to be remo­ved from my site. The­re was no rea­son (or a law) given for this, neit­her was the­re any men­tio­ning of a court order having been issued (and I haven’t been deli­ve­red one), which to my unders­tan­ding is requi­red in Fin­land for the police to be able to tell me to do this. #

So I asked the police­man for the rea­sons, as well as the speci­fic parts of my site he was refer­ring to (since I had writ­ten about the issue seve­ral times). Today he replied, refer­ring to a law which covers .fi-domains. As you can see, mine is .net. And even if it was .fi, as far as I can tell, the law in ques­tion doesn’t entit­le the police to order me to cen­sor my words. #

This time he did single out the speci­fic texts I had to remo­ve, so I did that, since I guess it’s not a valid rea­son not to do what the police tell you to, even if their rea­sons for tel­ling you to do so seem to be full of shit. Whet­her they are, that’s for a hig­her aut­ho­ri­ty to deci­de, and that’s exact­ly what Tuo­mas Kil­pi, the edi­tor of anot­her Fin­nish blog and a com­pu­ter magazi­ne asked them to do (for which I’m very gra­te­ful to him). As for me, I’ve reques­ted Elect­ro­nic Fron­tier Fin­land for their com­ments on this. #

I’ve not yet been to a hea­ring, but am expec­ting to, since the officer in ques­tion did pho­ne me after I had infor­med him of having done the remo­vals he’d asked me (he’d found anot­her copy - from his brow­ser’s cac­he), and thus veri­fied him­self as being for real (even though the hea­ders and eve­ryt­hing see­med to be valid, with e-mail you never know) and having infor­med the local police about the mat­ter. #

25.2. 11:25 Fixed a typo.
21.5. 2007 22:17 Remo­ved dead links to Enter magazi­ne blog and Kaleva.plus. Moder­nized the sty­le and tech­niques used. Remo­ved quo­ta­tion marks from around the title.