One Man Crusade

There is an interesting article in the New York Times of 31st May 2010 about the power of the internet and the ability to publish one's personal opinions critical of a business.

Venting Online, Consumers Can Find  Themselves in Court is about how a young man posted the story of his car was wrongfully towed away by a towing company from his parking slot.

“There’s no reason I should have to shut up because some guy doesn’t  want his dirty laundry out,” Mr. Kurtz said. “It’s the power of the  Internet, man.”  

This subject has a very personal interest for Annikki and me. We have been internet activists for over 15 years.

When our company, Findians Oy,  bought a portable computer  from AST Inc. (Finland), the 5th largest computer company in the world in 1995, and we found it to be a total and complete dud, and when our grievances were not handled by the company, we started an international internet campaign. This brought in responses from across the globe and highlighted that we were not the only ones who had been conned by this company.

The Finnish legal system we found was weighted heavily against the small individual. We knew we would never get justice in the Finnish Courts - which situation exits even today.

Our internet campaign was an enormous success resulting in the closure of AST Inc..

They sold the brand name to SAMSUNG. But the public outrage we had created was so strong, the brand name never again saw the light of day.

When we started our "Oulu Best (Worst) Buy" blog and we exposed some of the practices of some Oulu businesses, we had enormous success.

We recently published the list of worst lawyers in Finland and especially Oulu. Recently, our blog was quoted in an application to the Finnish High Court when a plaintiff tried to get out of the clutches of Finland's worst lawyer.

Of course, the legal system is a complete farce in Finland. The Finnish Lawyer's Association (Suomen Asianajajaliito) has a process which is supposed to investigate any complaints from the public against lawyers. Our recent protracted experience showed that it does nothing of the kind. This organisation exists only to "look after their brother" and it has nothing to do with law or justice.

The main problem in Finland is that the media is also subservient to the authorities and those in power, so there is simply no recourse for the general public to get any justice from this twisted legal system.

We have many sleepy Ombudsmen all over Europe. In theory, the Ombudsman is an excellent system, but it has been usurped by those in power for their own ends.

The Police, especially the Oulu Police,  are also extremely corrupt. We have seen this from our several personal experiences,. They go to great lengths to preserve their fear power base over the people. Legalities are not for them! And the rot is at the very top from where the orders come downwards!

But this corruption is different from the general corruption we have in India. That is for people to earn a wage to exist. Here, in Finland, it has nothing to do with the monetary return. It has to do with "POWER".

The local newspaper started  "Free Speech Day".

From Jacob's Blog

My platform, from where I spoke on all the subjects that I had investigated the previous year, was a great success. So, last year, the newspaper changed the format so that I could not get a chance to speak! And this year it appears that they have decided against having the event altogether.

If it is not permitted to publicise the misdeeds of an individual,  company, organisation or authority, then, by the same standards, it must also be illegal to publish "kudos" about them.

If this is so, it heralds the death of investigative journalism and also the end of democracy.

FREE SPEECH is already dead in Finland!