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ridicule anybody. Even Blacks were not immune. It was not Karis art to be "kind or
soft". Actually, by his caricatures he revealed the double standard of Finnish public
morality, which did not allow the representation of unfriendly facts. Virkkunen
pointed out that letters to the editor contained even “worse” (i.e. not publishable)
views of Blacks than Kari could express through his caricatures. In conclusion,
Virkkunen stated—again following the rules of journalism—that Kari’s caricatures
belonged to the sphere of “wide freedom of expression”, reserved just for carica¬
turists and columnists. He emphasized that Kari was not a reporter or a research
journalist, who had the responsibility to disseminate objective truth. In view of
this, neither Helsingin Sanomat nor any official authority could censure Kari (Janne
Virkkunen’s reply May 6, 1991. Archives of the Finnish Media Council).
It is remarkable that the Media Council’s decision essentially accepted and even
enhanced the argument put forward by the editor of the Helsingin Sanomat. The
council said that Kari had the “right” to caricature “sharply and sensationally” any
current issue in society. Obviously those who had submitted the complaint had
underestimated the intelligence of the readership of the Helsingin Sanomat since
the council added to its decision this concluding clause: “As the readers immedi¬
ately realized that they were looking at a caricature which expressed the opinion
of the caricaturist, Kari’s caricatures did not break the good manners (Ayvd tapa in
Finnish) of journalism”. The council emphasized that it did not deal with matters
of opinion but only kept an eye on the media to ensure that it complied with the
council's rules (Decision no. 1702/SL/90, May 6, 1991, Archives of the Finnish
Media Council).
After the decision of the Media Council became public, many newspapers in
Finland hurried to defend the decision from their own points of view. To cite just
one example, the paper Lapin Kansa (‘Lapland People’), published in Rovaniemi,
the capital of Lapland, expressed that the persons who had handed in the com¬
plaint had made themselves ridiculous and that the whole matter was tragically
comical. The paper hailed Kari as the “truth-teller” who did not conceal unfriendly
facts. And even more straightforwardly, the paper said, in his work he fulfilled “the
demands of Finnish ethics” (Lapin Kansa June 17, 1991). Kari himself commented
on the issue with a caricature in which he reacted to the way twenty-eight judicial
experts had submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Justice—they were not satis¬
fied with the Media Council’s lenient verdict. They wanted the ministry to clarify
whether Kari’s caricatures of the Somali violated the Law of Printing Rights and
whether the caricatures constituted agitation against any distinct ethnic group. In
the ministry, the matter was dropped without further ado. Kari himself would have
liked to have been heard in court in order to create a precedent for a caricaturist
being sued in Finland. Nevertheless, he drew a caricature in which he is standing in
front of the court and judges, who are sentencing him “to life-long punishment for
expressing opinions” (Kari in Helsingin Sanomat January 11, 1991).