Nature of Incident

In-person harrassment, slurs or threats of violence

I was in Helsinki, Finland on the 16th July 2012, arrived at Viking line terminal with my two kids at about 10am in the morning from Sweden. Outside the Terminal on the street close to the taxi parking station, two Finnish police men in mufty approached me, showed me their ID card and ask me for my passport. I ask them why and they refuse to tell me, but rather insisted that I have two options either show my passport or come to the station. I told them clearly I am not showing them any passport until I know why they want to see my passport. I insisted that it was clearly police racism as I have been target because of my skin color. I asked them to ask other white people around for passport and then ask me or tell me why they want my passport. They argument ensured for almost 30 minutes and my children were getting tired and then I decided to show my passport and they even hard the guts to write down the information from the passport as it was not enough to check the info inside. The question is does police now have the right to harass law abiding citizens who are going about on their everyday works of life without no reason? I felt that I was clearly targeted because of the colour of my skin and that really spoil my day. If my kids were not with me, I wouldn't have back down and I was ready to follow them to the station or anywhere as long as it takes and will even insist on getting a Lawyer. I just can't stop feeling bad about it because I showed them my passport for no reason and they even had plenty of time to take down the info without explaining why they did that.