Hussein al-Taee

Hussein al-Taee (Arabic: حسين الطائي, romanized: Ḥusayn aṭ-Ṭā’ī; born 19 May 1983^[1]) is a Finnish politician who served in the Parliament of Finland for the Social Democratic Party of Finland at the Uusimaa constituency between 2019 - 2023.

Hussein al-Taee in July 2016

Al-Taee has a strong background in peace building and mediation. Previously he worked as an advisor at the Finnish peace broker organization Crisis Management Initiative (CMI).^[2]

Al-Taee holds a master's degree in international management.

Early life

Al-Taee was born in Baghdad. He moved to Finland as a quota refugee in 1993.^[3]

Political career

Al-Taee was elected to the Parliament on SDP's ticket in parliamentary elections 2019.^[4] al-Taee is a member of Commerce Committee and Environment Committee in Parliament. He also serves in Fortum's Stakeholder Advisory Board.^[5]

After the elections, civil rights activist Anter Yaşa [fi] published on his blog screenshots of al-Taee's writings on Facebook. Iltalehti and The Jerusalem Post claimed that Yaşa assume al-Taee's posts are pro-Iran and antisemitic.^[6][7][8] Al-Taee has worked as an administrator of the "Gazan sota - Lähi-idän tilanne - uutisseuranta" named Facebook group.^[6][7]

Finnish media, like STT, has tried to find if the screenshots are true. Al-Taee denied his posts and called them as a smear attack. He stated that he recognizes part of his posts as his own, but does not remember written all of his old postings.^[7] CMI stated that those posts were falsified.^[9] Later al-Taee recognized that those screenshots were in fact real.^[10]

Personal life

Al-Taee is married and has three children.^[11]