Radio | News week in plain Finnish | Saturday 20.12.2025

Eye strain pictures and their consequences

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Eye stretching pictures

The topic of the news week is eye-stretching photos, a series of events that started with Miss Finland’s social media photo and spread around the world.

We will now tell you more about the series of events and its consequences.

Sarah Dzafce is squinting in a social media update. Below the image is the text "Let’s eat Chinese".

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It all started with this picture of Sarah Dzafce squinting in a social media post. (Photo taken by a reader who sent it to Yle) Photo: Photo from Jodel post

Miss Finland

The series of events began when Miss Finland Sarah Dzafce stretched her eyes with her fingers so that she looked Chinese.

A picture of Dzafce went viral on social media last week. The caption included the word “Chinese”.

The picture may have been a joke, but it had serious consequences.

Many people felt that the image was offensive to Asian people and that the image was therefore racist.

That’s why Dzafce lost the Miss Finland crown, meaning she is no longer Miss Finland.

Members of Parliament

After this, Finns Party MPs Kaisa Garedew and Juho Eerola published pictures in which they stretched their eyes in the same way.

They said they wanted to support Miss Finland.

Asian newspapers and social media users strongly criticized the Finns’ behavior.

Finland received a lot of negative attention, especially in China, South Korea and Japan.

The Finnish airline Finnair also received a lot of negative feedback from Asia.

MP Juho Eerola’s profile picture on Facebook. The text reads "Juho Eerola updated his profile picture. I am Sarah!" In the picture, he is squinting.

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Member of Parliament Juho Eerola squinted in a photo he posted on Facebook. Photo: Juho Eerola’s Facebook page

Apologies

This week, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo apologized for the use of MPs through the embassies of Japan, South Korea, and China.

Orpo said that racist behavior is not accepted in Finland.

The Finns Party parliamentary group gave Garedew and Eerola a serious warning on Thursday.

The Finns Party group said that such images should not be published.

Garedew and Eerola also apologized.

Government disagreements

There has been disagreement in the government and parliament about how serious the matter was.

The chairman of the Finns Party, Riikka Purra, said that the pictures were a bad idea, but he did not call the pictures racist.

Purra said that the purpose of the MPs’ images was not racist.

The Prime Minister’s National Coalition Party and many other parties said the images were racist and condemned them.

Petteri Orpo surrounded by the media.

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Prime Minister Petteri Orpo condemned the eye-stretching photos. Photo: Henrietta Hassinen / Yle

Repetition

The topic of the news week was the eye-stretching photos of Miss Finland and members of parliament and their effects around the world.

The images angered people in Asia and Finland received negative attention.

The Prime Minister apologized for the pictures. The MPs also apologized and received a serious reprimand.

This was a news week in plain Finnish. See you again, let’s hear from you!