After ‘Post’ exposé, Finnish police investigate antisemitic MP

The Finnish tabloid Iltalehti reported on Monday that the country’s office of the prosecutor-general requested that the police launch an investigation into antisemitic, racist and homophobic writings by pro-Iranian regime MP Hussein al-Taee.

The Jerusalem Post first reported Sunday on the scope of the newly elected Finnish Social Democratic MP’s hate-filled attacks on Jews, Israelis, Kurds, Somalis and Sunni Muslims. Al-Taee even compared Israel to Islamic State.

Al-Taee admitted on Monday at a press conference that he wrote the Facebook posts, including targeting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, stating: “Jew doing what a Jew does best. F***s up everybody to gain everything.”

He initially said that the Facebook posts were a plot to blackmail him, according to the Finnish News Agency STT.

The agency reported on Thursday that al-Taee was hospitalized on Tuesday and will go on sick leave.

Antti Ämmälä , a spokesman for the independent Finnish NGO Crisis Management Initiative – where al-Taee served as an advisor for Iraq – told the Post that, “at the moment, we don’t see a scenario where he would return to CMI.”

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, told the Post on Sunday that, “This guy [Hussein al-Taee] is obviously an antisemite.”

STT reported that the Social Democratic Party parliamentary group’s chairman Antti Lindtman said on Thursday that, “the party would address possible repercussions al-Taee may face for his past inflammatory comments once he returns from sick leave.”

It is unclear if the social democrats and the Finnish security services will investigate al-Taee’s connections to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States government classifies Iran’s regime as the leading international state-sponsor of terrorism.

Benjamin Weinthal is a European correspondent at The Jerusalem Post and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.