O seguinte texto, escrito en inglés, é a carta de denuncia que enviei a distintos xornais suecos, á propia compañía naviera e á Axencia Europea de Dereitos Fundamentais (FRA) despois do acontecido, e do que fun testigo, nun dos barcos da dita compañía. Agardo que vos chegue á alma e vos faga reflexionar sobre que algo, máis que a economía, está a fallar no mundo enteiro. Grazas polo voso tempo.
The next article is a letter of complaint that I sent to different swedish journals, to the shipping company and to the Fundamental Rights Agency of UE after what happened in one of the ships of this company. I hope you get the soul and it makes you think about something more than economy is failling in all the World. Thanks for your time.
My name is Martin, I’m 20 years old and I’m from Spain. I was a user of the Tallink Silja line Stockholm – Helsinki – Stockholm last Thursday the 17th of November when an unfortunate incident happened in this boat between midnight and 4:00 A.M. in the morning.
Like usual, there was quite a big group of young people using the boat this night; a few minutes after midnight I was in one of the smoking areas enabled in the boat with other people, when one of them, that I’m going to call James so as to not use his real name. James was with us, doing the same things as us.
I had just met James a few minutes before and we were having a casual conversation. At this time, a group of three finish boys appeared. They were older than us. After looking at us for a few minutes, they called James over, saying they had to ask him a question.
As I said, I had just met James so I didn’t know what was really happening and at the same time they were speaking in finish, so I couldn’t understand the conversation, but I started to see how the situation began to be uncomfortable for James and how these boys started to provoke and harass James. Luckily for me, I was with other Finnish people that understood the situation and told me that they were insulting and lashing James.
I decided to try to stop the situation, talking with the only one of the three that would answer me when I asked him what was happening, and trying to calm them I said that I think that was enough and saying that all of us were young and we were there having fun and maybe there was a mistake but I was totally sure that my friend didn’t want to offend them.
After my words, the leader of the three boys just turned, looked at me, and said: “You should shut up or we are going to do with you the same as we are going to do with him.” Two seconds after he starts hitting James.
Just in this moment, me and one of the girls that was with me and James in the smoking area ran to the hall to ask information for the security of the boat. The woman that was working there called the security immediately. The girl that was with me just come back to the place where the fight was happening but I tried to explain to the woman that I wanted to sign in somewhere that this was happening, and that I was witness, something usual for making the court proceedings easier; she denied my suggestion and she only repeated to me “Go down stairs and talk with security.”
When I arrived down stairs the security was there, the fight was stopped in this moment and James, who was bleeding after the beating, was again with our group of people. I started to talk with the security of the boat telling them that I had called them and that I wanted to record in the pertinent document what happened there a few minutes before. He never answered me even I was repeating the same thing three or four times and a Finnish boy that was with me in this moment explain to him in Finnish what I was trying to say, of course he didn’t answer him either.
When the security left, they took only two of the Finnish boys that were harassing James (in that moment I thought that arrested). A few minutes later, the third one came with more friends (boys and girls) to intimidate us and say to us that they will be outside of the boat the day after.
Nothing happened until one hour later, when we decided to go to the last floor where the nightclub of the boat is. After being there quite some time, suddenly all the boys of the fight appeared again. We tried to hide so that they didn’t see us, but it was impossible because they were trying to find James. When they found him they started to insult him and say that tomorrow they will be waiting for us outside of the boat, and if the police where there the problems would be worse.
After this situation, we went again to talk with the security and his answer was “The best idea is that you go to your cabin right now.” The morning after nothing happened.
James is a black boy, and the three boys that hit him were skinheads. The police never came, of course James preferred this because he lives in Finland and this can create problems for him. James is Finnish, he was adopted by a family who gives to him the opportunity of life in the “developed world”, and if this never happens, for me he would be really lucky.
This story is totally real, I’m 100% sure that the security cameras that there are in the boat recorded most of the parts of this story, there are witness that were there in the moment of the fight, in the nightclub, and in the conversations that I wrote here.
I’m sure that if the decision is of the company, nothing is going to happen. For they and their business this is nothing, if an idiot like me doesn’t decide to tell this story, then nobody is going to know that their boats are not secure, that if something happen there, the laws of the strongest is the only law that works, and even in the information papers, there are warnings that the person who generates some prejudice in his boat will be arrested by the security of the boat and this will be made known to the authorities. We can now see how this is just a lie.
The costs of having an area for this kind of problems, the cost of a really effective security, and the costs and time of doing all the paperwork… This will make their business unprofitable, and of course, the life of people and the rights of them is not important if they continue earning money regardless.
I suppose that nothing is going to happen, but I must try; I’m going to try to do all that is in my hands for it. This story is going to be sent to some newspapers and to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
Hopefully, with some luck, this is the last story about this that can be counted.
