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NATO membership is a free choice and the citizens of Finland overwhelmingly want to be part of the alliance. At least this is the justification for the continuous expansion of NATO towards the borders of Russia despite the agreements signed with the Russian leaders after the implosion of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.
However, news coming from Finland, a historically neutral country, confirmed that joining the Atlantic bloc is not as free and spontaneous as it is made out to be.
The Finnish authorities, in fact, intimidate the population so that they do not speak out against the country’s entry into the Atlantic alliance, the Chairman of the Finnish Journalists Union, Juha Korhonen told RT. He is confident that many people in Finland are against the bloc.
According to the reporter: “NATO will not increase Finland’s security. There are many people in Finland who are against NATO, especially because the bloc is increasing tensions with Russia.”
He added that according to a previous estimation, there was 60 or even 70 percent of the population who were against the idea of their country joining NATO. That is why, according to him, the Finns took the civil initiative on a referendum in record time, with the initiative receiving the necessary 50 000 votes. However, the parliament refused to take this into account.
“This referendum and the Finnish people was ignored for pretty core reasons. The Finnish politicians just wanted everything to be passed very quickly,” he said.
“We have a shared long border of 1 300 kilometers, and the Finns have learned to live in harmony with Russia here for 80 years and do not want any tension,” Korhonen said. He added that Finnish people are currently not allowed to say anything negative about the alliance.
“The Finnish media is completely one-sided about NATO, but in fact, the most serious problem in Finland is social networks. Where, if you say something against NATO, you will amazingly be called an agent of a foreign government. That is, in this case, a Russian agent,” he noted.
“My generation has never witnessed something like this – people being completely gagged, and this is just sad […] By burning a NATO flag, I wanted to show that Finland still dares to express its own opinion, even if they are trying to silence it in every possible way,” the journalist concluded.
On May 18, Finland and Sweden submitted the applications to NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg, to join the alliance.
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Featured image: NATO HQ/ Juta Korhonen. Screenshot from YouTube
