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Russia labels Saami organizations as terrorists, escalating tensions.
The Russian Ministry of Justice has added more than 50 indigenous organisations to its list of terrorists and extremists. This is how the government is attacking the Saami people, who have inhabited the Lapland region, which includes parts of Russia, Norway, and Sweden, for thousands of years.
The Saami people inhabit the area known as Lapland, which includes parts of Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The Saami are known for their nomadic lifestyle and reindeer herding. The first mentions of the Saami date back to 98, making them the oldest people in Scandinavia. Currently, the indigenous population faces enormous problems due to the Russian government's actions against the Saami. In July 2024, the Russian Ministry of Justice added 55 indigenous organisations to its list of terrorists and extremists. In practice, this means that their representatives and anyone who contacts them can be sentenced to prison.
War In Ukraine Poses 'Terrible Threat' For Russia's Saami People, But Solutions Are Few
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has taken an unknown number of men -- draftees, volunteers, and prisoners recruited by the mercenary group Wagner -- away from the Lovozero district, a land of tundra, tumble-down settlements of wooden homes, and reindeer herders on Russia's subarctic Kola Peninsula, a few hours southeast of the Barents Sea port of Murmansk.
It is an exodus that adds to the challenges clouding the future of the Saami community in Russia, where their numbers are already substantially smaller than in neighboring Norway, Finland, and Sweden.
"The war changed everything a lot," commented Lovozero resident Valentina Sovkina, a Saami activist and one of the few still willing to speak out publicly amid a spiraling state clampdown on free speech in which criticism of the war is a crime. "This is a terrible threat for everyone, and especially for minorities."
originally posted by: crayzeed
Russia has always been very scared of the Nordic countries especially Finland. Before and during WW2 the Russians thought they could take Finland, the Finns kicked them out. If you want to see why please watch a film called "Sissu", very graphic but enlightening about the Finns.
www.dictionary.com...
Though Lapp, Laplander, and Lappish are still in use, the people themselves consider these terms to be offensive. They use the name Sami. The reason for the perceived offensiveness of these terms is their possible etymology from an Old Swedish word meaning “piece or patch,” alluding to the patched clothes that the impoverished Sami wore in the past. Lapland is still the acceptable name for the region inhabited by the Sami, though the Sami call it Sapmi.
www.sametinget.se...
In modern history, the Sami have been the holders of so-called lappskatteland, Sami tax-lands. Dividing up land between different families in a Sami reindeer-herding and economic district (a sameby) was necessary to be able to carry on hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. The Sami tax-lands constituted tax land, according to both the district courts and the county authorities in the middle of the 1600’s. In other words, the Sami owned the land they used. Tax lands could be both inherited and sold. During the 1700’s and 1800’s, the Sami gradually lost the right of possession of their old lands, partly due to infringement and demands from farming settlers moving farther north and inland. These farmers were granted ownership rights of their tax lands in 1789, something that was previously exclusive to nobility. Since the Swedish authorities no longer respected the Sami tax-lands, the county administrative board suggested that they should be abolished, which the Riksdag decided in 1928, even if no clear decision was previously taken on a governmental level on the ceasing of the including of Sami on tax land.
originally posted by: crayzeed
Russia has always been very scared of the Nordic countries especially Finland. Before and during WW2 the Russians thought they could take Finland, the Finns kicked them out. If you want to see why please watch a film called "Sissu", very graphic but enlightening about the Finns.