Kinda Old Article About Outi Koski/Finnish Media

[ilikepeanutbutter]

http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/english/ ... 1978170063

""The entire affair is a textbook example of how a blinkered national viewpoint still holds sway in the mass media", says Professor Heikki Heikkilä of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Tampere University. "

An interesting view and article if you haven't read it yet.

Kat

[Phil]

Yes, that article is certainly a "refreshing" read from the Finnish media. I'm happy to see someone is admitting to their own bias.

[ilikepeanutbutter]

Yes, that article is certainly a "refreshing" read from the Finnish media. I'm happy to see someone is admitting to their own bias.

It is definitly! There was so bias off this case it left big steaming piles

Kat

[AldenG]

Will (or did) the mother go to jail? Face any other sanctions?

Non-custodial parents who kidnap or fail to return children to custodial parents in the US routinely go to jail. Many such cases are treated as emergencies, with abduction alerts going out immediately over emergency interruptions of radio and TV broadcasts and signage on electronic highway billboards describing the abductor's vehicle.

Has she even violated any Finnish law? I know she can't visit the US, possibly ever again, but I suppose that she as a Finnish citizen can't be extradited to stand trial in the US, either.

[otyikondo]

As the elderly article points out, there is nothing very "Finnish" about all this, so it's no use people getting on their high-horse about it. The Russians have exhibited precisely the same behaviour over the Salonen case, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the same procedure applies in cross-border custody disputes that affect the UK or the US.

To some extent the problem is exacerbated by the police's reluctance for investigative or trial reasons to give all the details: the papers are obliged to rely on what they can get, and in this case Outi Koski was the only show in town, since her ex-husband wasn't around and didn't get a word in.

Before one slams the Finns in this, it is worth stopping and considering the public reaction in more or less ANY Western country when one of their own gets done bang to rights in a Far East country with half a pound of smack up their chuff, and gets banged up as a drug-mule in a stinking foreign jail. They are seldom guilty in the eyes of the popular press back home, and their return is treated as a matter of urgency and national "pride". The assumption - a hubristic one - is that justice is only done in one's own country, and that inevitably a conviction in some third-world hellhole is unsafe.

It's much the same principle at work. And yet "miscarriage of justice" can occur in even the nicest of countries: Lockerbie was a case in point, and doubtless the Libyans felt much the same about "getting their boy home".

[Rip]

Has she even violated any Finnish law?

I'm not 100% sure, but quite possibly she did nothing illegal in Finnish territory. At least I have not heard of any court case against her here.

I know she can't visit the US, possibly ever again, but I suppose that she as a Finnish citizen can't be extradited to stand trial in the US, either.

Actually she returned there on her own, and apparently has faced at least short jail time. I do not know anything more and frankly I hope never need to see the name of that woman in newspaper headlines. As far extradition is concerned, the Finnish constitution has been neutered in that respect, so it may have well been a possibility - but in this case anyway she decided to go to USA voluntarily.

(from February 2007) http://www.hs.fi/english/print/1135225303558

[Rosamunda]

I vaguely remember hearing from someone (grapevine - my kids were in the same class as "the Espoo Boys") that OK was in Canada but I might be wrong. IIRC the elder of the two boys will be 18 next year. He used to be in contact with his old classmates (MSN etc) but not sure if that has continued. The boys both have Finnish citizenship so will be able to come to FInland for their national service, if they wish.

While the Finnish media made a meal out of it, the boys' school managed surprisingly well to maintain normality. Since the newspapers initially showed no photos of the children, many of us (parents) didn't even realise our own kids were friends with the Espoo Boys!

[AldenG]

but in this case anyway she decided to go to USA voluntarily.

(from February 2007) http://www.hs.fi/english/print/1135225303558

Brave but smart. It's probably the only way she would have seen them again, at least before they reached adulthood.