Do you regret your actions, a BBC reporter asked a Finnish neo-Nazi in the yard of an apartment building. The man called the police.
Roni Kuronen,
Kirsi Crowley
20:58•Updated 21:37
The British broadcasting company BBC traveled to Finland and found a 20-year-old Finnish neo-Nazi who incited British rioters to arson on Telegram in the summer. The Telegram group maintained by a Finnish man and since closed had more than 14,000 members.
The BBC says that it first reached out to the young Finnish man by e-mail. When the man did not answer the questions posed by the BBC, the journalists decided to approach him directly.
BBC reporter Ed Thomas In a video published by the BBC, the man asks if he takes responsibility for his messaging in the Southport Wake Up group on the Telegram messaging channel.
Three children died in the Southport attack. Widespread riots followed, which the British police blamed on the far right. The rioters blamed the killing of the children on immigration. The perpetrator of the stabbing was a 17-year-old minor son of Rwandan immigrants born in Britain. He is now awaiting trial in jail.
Too many reporter questions
According to the BBC, the discussion group of a Finnish man even organized the first violent riot in Southport. In Southport, rioters broke into a mosque and threatened the Muslims inside.
Thomas asks if the young man regrets his actions and what he says to families in Britain who are grieving their children.
– What do you want to say to the people who were injured in the riots? Do you believe that your posts have consequences? You sent arson instructions. Are you a neo-Nazi, the reporter asks while following the man in the courtyard of the apartment building with a microphone.
When the BBC approached the man on the street, he decided to call the police and accuse the BBC journalists of harassment.
– I said in the email that I do not agree to the interview. If this continues, I will apply for a restraining order, the man says.
A man makes a call on his cell phone in front of the parking lot of an apartment building, saying into the handset that he needs the police because of disturbances and accuses them of disturbing the peace.
– They come here to ask all kinds of questions and shove the camera in their faces. I don’t feel any. I would call the police because I have filed a criminal complaint against them, says the man.
reported on the man’s actions in August
In August, told how the same Finnish man had acted as a background force in the organization of anti-foreigner riots in Great Britain in July and August.
British anti-fascist According to the Red Flare research team the arson instructions the man shared in the Telegram group came from a Russian-Ukrainian neo-Nazi group. “Something fun to read for you,” the man wrote along with the instructions.
The man is known to have maintained a channel on Telegram spreading Nazi ideology for years. Among other things, he has called to “destroy the cursed Jews” and admired Adolf Hitler.
does not publish the name of the man appearing in the story, because he has not been convicted of any serious crime.