On the morning of 24 September, the columns and steps of the parliament building in Helsinki were daubed with red paint in a so-called protest action against peat extraction. It was staged by Extinction Rebellion Finland and the Swedish environmental activist group Återställ Våtmarker.
Extinction Rebellion said that the water-soluble paint had been sprayed onto the columns using fire extinguishers.
On Wednesday, 25 September, the Helsinki Police Department reported that no advance notification of a demonstration had been received. The organisers confirmed this as well. Roughly a dozen protesters were detained at the scene. The incident is provisionally being investigated as a criminal offence with aggravating circumstances.
Green activist Lior Stefansson, press representative for the organisation Återställ Våtmarker, said the parliament building had been chosen as a deliberate target. This was done because Finnish lawmakers, too, are said to be "responsible for the fact that some people are losing their lives and their homes because of the climate emergency…"
"Finland has received more than 400 million in support to end its peat production. Despite this, Finland is sending its company Neova to Sweden to destroy Swedish nature. This has to stop," the activist said, according to the broadcaster YLE.
Neova, formerly known as Vapo, manages around 200 peat extraction sites in Finland, Estonia and Sweden. Its largest owner is the Finnish government, which holds 50.1% of the shares.
Neova representatives rejected the green activists' claims on 25 September
"I would say these are absolutely false claims," Ahti Martikainen, director of communications and media relations at Neova, told Helsingin Sanomat. "We have not moved peat production from Finland to Sweden. In both countries the volume of peat production has fallen in recent years. In Sweden it is very low." Martikainen added that in Finland the company plans to extract around five million cubic metres of peat this year, which is 75 per cent less than in 2018. In Sweden, for the second year running, extraction will be slightly above one million cubic metres, which is probably the lowest combined volume over any two-year period.
Martikainen also pointed out that Neova has not received support from the European Union's Just Transition Fund cited by the activists. That fund was set up to advance the 27-nation bloc's commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Finland has received 466 million euros from the fund, allocating the sum to offsetting the negative environmental and socio-economic impacts of reducing the use of peat energy. None of the fund's money has been granted to the company.
Helsingin Sanomat wrote that by the evening of 25 September most of the paint had been washed off the building's columns and steps. Traces of red paint were, however, still visible in places on the granite slabs of the facade.
"We will start examining the consequences of the act of vandalism as early as tomorrow. A representative of the Finnish Heritage Agency will accompany us. It is a protected building, so the heritage agency also oversees the cleaning of the facade," Juha-Pekka Riinanen, the property manager of the parliament building, told the newspaper on 25 September.
Lawmakers widely condemned the protest
Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo described it as a "reprehensible" and "incomprehensible" act of disorder. "Finland is a free democracy. We have the right to protest and to influence matters, but we have civilised ways of doing so," the Prime Minister told the media. Petteri Orpo also stressed that the use of ever more aggressive methods to win an audience for protesters does nothing to advance the aims of the protest. Such actions are more likely to lead to tighter surveillance of public space. "You can demonstrate, protest, stand for election, take part in all kinds of civic activity, but behaviour like this has no place in Finnish society."