Foreign states spy on refugees in Finland legally, Supo's 13-year-old fix still shelved

• Supo identified the legal gap in 2012 and recommended criminalisation, but no legislation has followed in thirteen years
• Foreign states — including Iran, Russia, and Belarus — conduct surveillance and pressure campaigns against exile communities in Finland without breaking Finnish law
• Supo deploys counter-intelligence resources to monitor and disrupt the activity, but cannot prosecute it
• Finland's NATO membership and hosting of allied infrastructure add strategic urgency to what remains an open vulnerability

Foreign governments run intelligence operations against refugees and diaspora communities on Finnish soil, and none of it is illegal. Hufvudstadsbladet reports that the Finnish Security Police, Supo (Suojelupoliisi), identified this legal gap and recommended criminalisation back in 2012. Thirteen years later, parliament has done nothing.

The gap is specific but consequential. Finnish law criminalises espionage directed at the Finnish state — stealing classified information, compromising national defence. But when a foreign intelligence service surveils, intimidates, or recruits informants within exile communities living in Finland, no Finnish statute is violated. The targets are not Finnish state secrets; they are people. Iranians who fled the Islamic Republic, Russians who opposed the Kremlin, Belarusians who escaped Lukashenko's crackdown — all live under the shadow of their home country's security apparatus, which operates freely because Finnish legislators never closed the door.

Supo has not been idle. The security police uses counter-intelligence methods to monitor foreign services active against diaspora groups and to disrupt their operations where possible. But disruption without prosecution is a holding action, not a solution. The foreign operatives face no legal consequences. They can be expelled if identified as diplomats, but the networks they build — local informants, surveillance infrastructure, pressure channels — remain intact. And the communities targeted have no legal recourse. A refugee who discovers that agents of the regime they fled are tracking their movements in Helsinki cannot file a criminal complaint, because no crime has been committed under Finnish law.

The inaction is harder to explain now than it was in 2012. Finland joined NATO in April 2023, hosts allied military infrastructure, and sits on a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia. The same foreign intelligence services that target diaspora communities also target military installations, government communications, and allied operations. Allowing them a legal operating space — even a narrow one — creates a permissive environment that professionals will exploit. Intelligence services do not compartmentalise neatly between "refugee surveillance" and "military espionage"; the same officers, the same networks, the same diplomatic cover serve multiple purposes.

Several NATO allies have moved to close equivalent gaps. Sweden criminalised foreign intelligence activity against individuals on Swedish territory in its updated espionage legislation. The United Kingdom's National Security Act 2023 covers foreign interference broadly, including activity targeting diaspora communities. Finland's failure to act is not a matter of legal complexity — the model legislation exists next door.

Why the delay? Supo made its recommendation. The legal framework is straightforward to draft. The political cost of protecting refugees from foreign intelligence services is close to zero. Yet three governments and multiple justice ministers have let the recommendation gather dust. The pattern suggests not opposition but indifference — the issue lacks a domestic constituency powerful enough to force it onto the legislative calendar.

Meanwhile, the people most affected — those who took Finland at its word when it offered them protection — find that the protection stops where it matters most. The regime they fled can watch them, map their networks, pressure their families back home, and none of it triggers a single line in the Finnish criminal code. Supo assigns counter-intelligence officers to shadow the shadows. The cost of that deployment comes out of the same budget meant to cover actual threats to the Finnish state.

Finland's parliament has had thirteen years, three governments, and one NATO accession since Supo first flagged the problem. The recommendation remains on file.

Sources: Hufvudstadsbladet