what could be done in these situations?

[Rosamunda]

Don't they have cameras in the buses anyway?
Didn't the driver do anything?

[Pursuivant]

I thought the prerequisite for driving a bus was being deaf and mute? Or maybe hhats just Helsinki traffic they employed people who communicate by grunts...

No, yes, take a video and post it. If you go react you need to deal with the police, while the bus continues its journey the police and you are then in the middle of nowhere and when the police leave you are still in the middle of nowhere.... without the bus.

[Rip]

In reverse order:

Even if Police takes action how possible that they get away saying they were drunk and those words came while intoxicated?

That should not have legal significance.

Even if I take the videos and send it to police, will they take any action against it?

Name of the crime in opinion is clearly slander or "kunnianloukkaus". The offended party needs to file a complaint for the courts to get interested (as is with number of other smaller crimes, "asianomistajarikos"). As a tax payer, unless the persons are clearly identifiable from the clip, I'd rather hope police would not put too much resources in trying to identify them (similarly as is the case for example with non-major cases of theft or vandalism)

Finally, if you did have identifiable persons in a clip, sending it to police would be OK and press might be interested as well, but putting it on to youtube could lead you to legal trouble as the local privacy rules are sometimes (imho) rather peculiar.

[Pursuivant]

Mostly criminals, businessmen, or politicians... people with no honor to start with... go sue in court for this. Honorable people do not employ lawyers.

[betelgeuse]

I
Finally, if you did have identifiable persons in a clip, sending it to police would be OK and press might be interested as well, but putting it on to youtube could lead you to legal trouble as the local privacy rules are sometimes (imho) rather peculiar.

In any case I would report such issues to the police using the online form [1]. This makes statistics reflect matters properly and the police hopefully has processes in place to see what is worth investigating.

[1] http://www.poliisilehti.fi/poliisi/home ... silmlomake

[misnomere]

Just a ridiculous sot thing and it happens in almost all countries.

Have you read this: (http://yle.fi/uutiset/yle_poll_many_fin ... se/7132558) ?

Nevertheless, I would personally step in ONLY if the person who's being abused/insulted/harassed/bullied is either a child or a disabled, Otherwise, You are on your own to defend/protect your own ass. However, From my long experience with Finns I can honestly say that the vast majority of them are decent and they would never do such a thing to a minor or a disabled especially in public.

[Rip]

You do it anonymously, they have not really anything investigate (in minor matter like this). Do it officially - I've signed in once for that, and it sort of like starts with telling that "you do realize you are causing extra work both for us and for yourself with this...?"

[Huy]

I had a similar thing happen many years ago. A posse of arab wannabe gangsters harassing a young couple, also in a full bus.
I sat not far from them. I could see the guy from the couple had a hard time, while his girl was being targeted. They were in despair and in need of help to stop it.
But... no one looked up. Their paper, shoe, or the !"#¤% on the window was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. My stop came, and I got off. And I knew that couple was stuck in that damn bus.
Did I feel bad when I was off the bus? You bet. I felt like a coward. A spineless thing. I knew, they needed help, and yet, did nothing.
Was that what I wanted, if I was in despair? Seeing all your fellow beings turn their back, and do nothing? I would be bitter. Pieces of your soul, your humanity would break. Never to be whole again.

After that... experience in 1994, whenever I saw people in need, outnumbered or not, I would always step up. Even when I got a solid beatdown together with the victim, I would never regret it.
The pain from the beatings was NOTHING compared to see pain at others, and then choose to do nothing.

A famous guy once wrote, "... All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

And ain't that the Goddamn truth! How hard is it to help the weak?

And with that rant done, please never escalate a situation. A simple stand next to the victim is more often than enough. Yell out for anyone to call the Police. The gratitude you will see in their eyes, is worth every moment you sweat with them!

[foca]

I personally do not understand why one should make a complaint like that anonymously. Are you afraid that having paid the fine they will find you and verbally abuse you too? From my personal experience all these local drunk warriors become timid bunnies as soon as they sober up.
When it comes to the fact that people sit and do nothing , well, they just need a hero to act - usually it is enough to have one person to make a stand and then you have a number of people supporting your cause. But of course before acting one should assess the situation and danger of it escalating to something unpleasant.

[atas]

Background literature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
and a counter-example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishnu_Shrestha

[betelgeuse]

I personally do not understand why one should make a complaint like that anonymously.

I am scared to ruin my peaceful life that's why.

These lawyers are different beasts, while pointing fingers of claim towards others you need to have exact proof, in that case I don't have exact proof as I didn't record the video or audio and its unlikely any other people from the Bus will come to testify it. So, its much likely those guys would get easily away from any court processing (if it goes to court), the worst case is, they can file a case against me of false claim and character assasination, etc. I have to hire a lawyer and do all those nonsense stuff spending huge amount of time, money and energy to prove my innocence. Who wants to get in trouble? Being anonymous is best bet.

If everyone thought like this, very few crimes would get reported. There's a conflict in your writing. First you say that the case doesn't fly because you will not be able to prove enough about the original authors. Then you say that it is a lot of trouble for you to prove your innocence. You do not have to prove your innocence in criminal proceedings. When you report a crime it is the police and prosecutors that decide how far to take the case (if they decide to not push it then involved parties do have the possibility to pick it up). If they decide to push the case, it can't come to hurt you. Also we are not in the United States so people are much less trigger happy about going to court.

[Rip]

If everyone thought like this, very few crimes would get reported. There's a conflict in your writing. First you say that the case doesn't fly because you will not be able to prove enough about the original authors. Then you say that it is a lot of trouble for you to prove your innocence. You do not have to prove your innocence in criminal proceedings. When you report a crime it is the police and prosecutors that decide how far to take the case (if they decide to not push it then involved parties do have the possibility to pick it up). If they decide to push the case, it can't come to hurt you. Also we are not in the United States so people are much less trigger happy about going to court.

If one report a crime regarding specified identified parson, counter filing on slander would be possible. If the police decide to act on the issue it is possible to called to the station to be heard. This can certainly be an inconvenience. If there would be a court case one would be likely legally obliged to come to testify. Monetary compensation from that would be small. To make it worse, it might happen several times if the accused person does not show up himself.

[GermanAmericanLove]

Could you have asked the driver to stop and kick the guys out? I wonder if the driver would have complied.
gabriele

[betelgeuse]

If one report a crime regarding specified identified parson, counter filing on slander would be possible. If the police decide to act on the issue it is possible to called to the station to be heard. This can certainly be an inconvenience. If there would be a court case one would be likely legally obliged to come to testify. Monetary compensation from that would be small. To make it worse, it might happen several times if the accused person does not show up himself.

Yes there's effort involved but how else can we get such behavior to stop?. I should have framed my comment about the counter filing that it has a slim chance of succeeding. As for the monetary compensation, I once escorted an elderly relative to court and was very satisfied with the money as a student. I got compensated for lost income, received daily allowance and kilometers by car. Of course normally you do not get kilometers when you can use public transport. If you are on flexible hours then you can testify on your own time and collect the daily allowance on top of your normal income.

[foca]

I am scared to ruin my peaceful life that's why.

So next time , when you become the center of such a crime , just try to enjoy your peaceful life.
As for slander and proactive prosecution from that kind of individuals , the probability of it is close to zero. Even if the case is not supported and prosecuted by police and the local prosecutor legally it would be close to impossible to prove your premeditation of slander and character defamation. A case like that would cost around 10000 for the accusing party - with a slightest possibility to win. Now ask yourself : will they go for it?