Finland reels over its ‘first terrorist act’
A CONTROVERSIAL monument to a doctor who experimented on slaves became the target of protesters who rallied at Central Park on Saturday.
The national conversation about Confederate statues following the violence in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend led activists here to renew their push to tear down the bronze likeness of Dr. J. Marion Sims.
“Memorializing of imperialist slaveholders, murderers and torturers like J. Marion Sims is white supremacy,” said Rossanna Mercedes, 27, a member of Black Youth Project 100. “We will no longer allow government institutions like the New York City Parks Department to passively allow symbols of oppression.”
Sims, a South Carolina native, is considered by some to be the “father of modern gynecology.” He developed a surgery to treat a tear women sometimes suffer after childbirth and founded the first hospital designed specifically for women in 1855.
But Sims honed his craft in the 19th century by carrying out a series of experimental operations on African-American slave women — without using anesthesia.
Protester Seshat Mak, 24, did not mince words when asked about Sims’ place in history.
“At best, J. Marion Sims was a racist man who exploited the institution of racism for his own gain,” Mak said. “At best, he was a man who recognized the humanity of black slaves to use them for medical research about the human body — but not enough to recognize and treat their pain during surgery.”
The statue of Sims, which stands at the corner of Fifth Ave. and East 103rd St., has been under fire for years by East Harlem residents who believe it is an affront in their racially diverse neighborhood.
The city has refused to remove the monument, cast in 1892 and first displayed in Bryant Park, despite the protests.
The Parks Department said in 2011 a historical sign would be added to the site to give further context about Sims’ experiments.
But activists want the statue removed and replaced by likenesses of Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy, the three women who suffered through Sims’ horrific experiments.
The protest comes as lawmakers nationwide are considering efforts to remove Confederate monuments in the wake of the violence that erupted in Charlottesville. A gathering of white nationalists, protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, led to the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer when a neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters.
The Central Park statue of THE KNIFE ATTACK in western Finland that left two people dead and seven others wounded is “a likely terror act,” Finland’s intelligence agency said Saturday, while police said Europol was investigating if it had any ties to deadly vehicle attacks in Spain.
The suspect — an 18-year-old Moroccan asylum-seeker — was shot in the thigh by police during his rampage Friday in the city of Turku. He was hospitalized under guard — still in intensive care Saturday — and is being investigated for murder with possible terrorist intent, police said.
His name has not been released but investigators say he came to Finland in early 2016 seeking asylum.
Crista Granroth of the National Bureau of Investigation said the suspect’s attack was very focused.
“We think the attacker was going after women,” Granroth said, adding that one man was slashed with the knife when he tried to stand between the attacker and a woman.
The two dead were Finnish women, while the seven wounded included four Finns, and one Italian, one Briton and one Swedish man. Two of the wounded were still in intensive care. The youngest victim was 15, the oldest 67, police said.
Prime Minister Juha Sipila told a news conference that “it’s the first time Finland has encountered such a terror act.”