Silja JA Talvi
@sjat.bsky.social
Forced exile from U.S.; survived severe human rights abuses. Veteran investigative journalist, lecturer & author: “Women Behind Bars.” Multi-minority. Emphases: Prisons, racism, misogyny, refugees. Documentary: https://youtu.be/lbBMriSDEwg?feature=shared
I’d like every self-declared leftist or radical to explain how they justify continuing to use X, owned & dominated by a zieg heiling far-right fascist & pro-eugenics zealot. Really. I wanna hear it. Because somewhere in your mind you justify it despite it being contemptible. #ElonMusk #Fascist
November 9, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Visiting #solitary units in U.S. jails & prisons changed my life. The levels of desperation, fear, torment, self-destruction, overmedication (to force submission) are pure #torture. Try to imagine years, even DECADES of this. Solitary is designed to break you. solitarywatch.org/wp-content/u...
October 29, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Visiting #solitary units in U.S. jails & prisons changed my life. The levels of desperation, fear, torment, self-destruction, overmedication (to force submission) are pure #torture. Try to imagine years, even DECADES of this. Solitary is designed to break you. solitarywatch.org/wp-content/u...
According to latest stats, 1.8 million persons are incarcerated in the U.S., an increase of 400,000 since 2019. More than 10% (roughly 200,000) are lifers. The U.S. represents 4% of the global pop but 40% of ALL lifers are in U.S. prisons, inc. 83% of all ppl serving life without parole. #LWOP
October 21, 2025 at 3:03 PM
According to latest stats, 1.8 million persons are incarcerated in the U.S., an increase of 400,000 since 2019. More than 10% (roughly 200,000) are lifers. The U.S. represents 4% of the global pop but 40% of ALL lifers are in U.S. prisons, inc. 83% of all ppl serving life without parole. #LWOP
What’s your protest soundtrack sounding like? I recommend 2 #BadReligion albums: “No Control” & “How Could Hell Be Any Worse.” #punk
“So many theories, so many prophecies/What we do need is a change of ideas/When we are scared we can hide in our reveries/ But what we need is a change of ideas”
“So many theories, so many prophecies/What we do need is a change of ideas/When we are scared we can hide in our reveries/ But what we need is a change of ideas”
September 28, 2025 at 6:57 PM
What’s your protest soundtrack sounding like? I recommend 2 #BadReligion albums: “No Control” & “How Could Hell Be Any Worse.” #punk
“So many theories, so many prophecies/What we do need is a change of ideas/When we are scared we can hide in our reveries/ But what we need is a change of ideas”
“So many theories, so many prophecies/What we do need is a change of ideas/When we are scared we can hide in our reveries/ But what we need is a change of ideas”
I arrived in Finland wearing clothes I bought at the Amsterdam airport. No luggage. Homeless. Alone. Severely traumatized. May 2011. Three yrs later I had finished my next book, on refugees & immigrants, just in time 4 the 2015 exodus. Only 1 family member thought 2 help house me. Ulla Talvi, RIP.
September 25, 2025 at 11:51 AM
I arrived in Finland wearing clothes I bought at the Amsterdam airport. No luggage. Homeless. Alone. Severely traumatized. May 2011. Three yrs later I had finished my next book, on refugees & immigrants, just in time 4 the 2015 exodus. Only 1 family member thought 2 help house me. Ulla Talvi, RIP.
Remind you of anything? #AbuGhraib anyone? John Yoo’s infamous certainly Torture Memos come to mind. The US govt has waded into same waters but this time they’re not hiding it and an apology won’t be forthcoming. ##Torture #WarOnTerror #Gitmo www.latimes.com/archives/la-...
September 20, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Remind you of anything? #AbuGhraib anyone? John Yoo’s infamous certainly Torture Memos come to mind. The US govt has waded into same waters but this time they’re not hiding it and an apology won’t be forthcoming. ##Torture #WarOnTerror #Gitmo www.latimes.com/archives/la-...
When I talk about how “old”punks like myself are redefining what it means to be our age, I marvel at the fact that Rollins & Lauper (here, singing one of my favesongs ever) are actually older than I am. I’m above a half century and still punk, still everything I ALWAYS was.
September 18, 2025 at 8:59 PM
When I talk about how “old”punks like myself are redefining what it means to be our age, I marvel at the fact that Rollins & Lauper (here, singing one of my favesongs ever) are actually older than I am. I’m above a half century and still punk, still everything I ALWAYS was.
No joke: this mind-blowing punk/reggae punk band from my youth became a code term for agents who had access to my “profile.” I urge anyone (esp activists, refugees & journos) who feel they might be on a targeted list to minimize routines & exactly how much you reveal about what you’re up to & into.
September 18, 2025 at 8:32 PM
No joke: this mind-blowing punk/reggae punk band from my youth became a code term for agents who had access to my “profile.” I urge anyone (esp activists, refugees & journos) who feel they might be on a targeted list to minimize routines & exactly how much you reveal about what you’re up to & into.
This is how the disability office has left me to suffer, in chronic & excruciating pain, w/ no assistance for a bed. It breaks Finnish and EU disability laws.
September 16, 2025 at 1:50 PM
This is how the disability office has left me to suffer, in chronic & excruciating pain, w/ no assistance for a bed. It breaks Finnish and EU disability laws.
Until lions and lionesses are heard telling their own stories—the hunter’s twisted versions will always prevail.
September 15, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Until lions and lionesses are heard telling their own stories—the hunter’s twisted versions will always prevail.
Imagine living a country where the cover story is about strawberries. 🍓 I both adore & criticize #Finnish #media bc it is both sincerely humble as well as intentionally disengaged from persistent & investigative coverage of the myriad things that ARE NOT going well thx 2 right-wing racist govt.
August 1, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Taken after my arrival in Finland after 1.5 yrs on the run in N. America. I have nothing left from my life, as is the case for most ppl who are forced to flee to not be killed or tortured (again). Sadly, I have no pics of the ”mökki” that should’ve stayed in the family. Everything is gone.
August 1, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Taken after my arrival in Finland after 1.5 yrs on the run in N. America. I have nothing left from my life, as is the case for most ppl who are forced to flee to not be killed or tortured (again). Sadly, I have no pics of the ”mökki” that should’ve stayed in the family. Everything is gone.
Ihmiset täällä esim pyytää koskea my ”horns” ja olettaa että puhun hepreaa ja olen Israelissa käynnyt. (Ei kaikille paitsi rukoukset hepreaksi.) En ole ikinä kuullut niin hulluja juttuja kuin Suomessa paitsi onneksi muslimit ymmärtää ja voidaan keskustella. Minun työ on pyörinyt rasismia vastaan.
August 1, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Ihmiset täällä esim pyytää koskea my ”horns” ja olettaa että puhun hepreaa ja olen Israelissa käynnyt. (Ei kaikille paitsi rukoukset hepreaksi.) En ole ikinä kuullut niin hulluja juttuja kuin Suomessa paitsi onneksi muslimit ymmärtää ja voidaan keskustella. Minun työ on pyörinyt rasismia vastaan.
A few pictures from around the time I was born in this country. We left when I was 5, which broke my heart into a million little pieces. Within two years, the first kidnapping attempt in LA while walking to the first day of school. In Finland, everybody walks to school. LA? Not so much.
July 30, 2025 at 8:31 PM
A few pictures from around the time I was born in this country. We left when I was 5, which broke my heart into a million little pieces. Within two years, the first kidnapping attempt in LA while walking to the first day of school. In Finland, everybody walks to school. LA? Not so much.
Even in Finnish cities, I find peace, if not escape from the heat. The ppl in cities definitely aren’t as warm or kind as my old (created) family of Alaska Natives & Native Americans, but there’s no escaping that. It’s Finland; it all goes w/ living here. But the nature is … well, stunning.
July 30, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Even in Finnish cities, I find peace, if not escape from the heat. The ppl in cities definitely aren’t as warm or kind as my old (created) family of Alaska Natives & Native Americans, but there’s no escaping that. It’s Finland; it all goes w/ living here. But the nature is … well, stunning.
I love #Finns who spend the day protesting and the evening celebrating the nature around us which we haven’t destroyed. Don’t get me wrong, the old-growth #forests nearly all gone (only 5 percent left, thanks to horrific capitalist policies), but the #nature around us is constant.
July 27, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Just made this point a few mins again. So glad to see it echoed elsewhere! Thx to @seattlesanta.bsky.social & @vizslaspgh.bsky.social for repost.
July 24, 2025 at 1:30 AM
Just made this point a few mins again. So glad to see it echoed elsewhere! Thx to @seattlesanta.bsky.social & @vizslaspgh.bsky.social for repost.
It’s at this point that I get the shivers. For real. Bc Musk has INFINITELY more in common w/ Hitler’s early & middle career tactics than even Herr Trump. Of the two, Musk is concretely WEDDED to his fascist ideology. Trump is a dumb but powerful extremist of a president & a profit driven racist.
July 9, 2025 at 5:41 AM
It’s at this point that I get the shivers. For real. Bc Musk has INFINITELY more in common w/ Hitler’s early & middle career tactics than even Herr Trump. Of the two, Musk is concretely WEDDED to his fascist ideology. Trump is a dumb but powerful extremist of a president & a profit driven racist.
Coming up in the LA hardcore punk scene, every pore of my body learned to resist everything the U.S. was cramming down our throats. We took the beatings of cops & Nazi skinheads, we lived knowing there might well not be a tomorrow. This was our soundtrack: “How Could Hell Be Any Worse?”
May 27, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Coming up in the LA hardcore punk scene, every pore of my body learned to resist everything the U.S. was cramming down our throats. We took the beatings of cops & Nazi skinheads, we lived knowing there might well not be a tomorrow. This was our soundtrack: “How Could Hell Be Any Worse?”
This roughly translates to “Private security (Avarn) increases the risk of brutality.” Romani ppl & refugees/immigrants/Finns of color know this intimately. These are the ppl who we fear more than cops & they’re the ones who follow & confront us everywhere we go.
May 1, 2025 at 9:23 PM
This roughly translates to “Private security (Avarn) increases the risk of brutality.” Romani ppl & refugees/immigrants/Finns of color know this intimately. These are the ppl who we fear more than cops & they’re the ones who follow & confront us everywhere we go.
Spring is finally starting to show in #Finland. Four distinct seasons makes all of us appreciate the changing landscape more than most of you can imagine! Today was 6 degrees Celsius & ppl were wearing short sleeves: 80 F for a few days is considered a severe heat wave.
May 1, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Spring is finally starting to show in #Finland. Four distinct seasons makes all of us appreciate the changing landscape more than most of you can imagine! Today was 6 degrees Celsius & ppl were wearing short sleeves: 80 F for a few days is considered a severe heat wave.
Trump & Musk & co. have unmasked their hoods & made hatred of the “unworthy” public. But 4 BIPOC, low-income women, refugees, etc, the struggle hasn’t changed. What HAS changed is the absence of “ally” & BLM proclamations on the left. You gotta stand w/ it every day; it ain’t going away.
April 13, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Trump & Musk & co. have unmasked their hoods & made hatred of the “unworthy” public. But 4 BIPOC, low-income women, refugees, etc, the struggle hasn’t changed. What HAS changed is the absence of “ally” & BLM proclamations on the left. You gotta stand w/ it every day; it ain’t going away.
It’s all happening just as many of us knew it would. Disappearance & deportation, both of which will lead to real deaths. If you’re not already a part of the underground network to hide ppl in danger of disappearance & deportation, you’d better get involved NOW. Help 1 or help 1,000. But help.
April 12, 2025 at 8:24 PM
It’s all happening just as many of us knew it would. Disappearance & deportation, both of which will lead to real deaths. If you’re not already a part of the underground network to hide ppl in danger of disappearance & deportation, you’d better get involved NOW. Help 1 or help 1,000. But help.