Over the past few months, Finland has become a hot-spot for anti-refugee sentiment in Europe as the influx of those seeking asylum from conflicts in Syria and Iraq continues to grow.

This year alone it is believed that Finland has accepted close to 20,000 refugees, predominantly from Iraq, and that number is set to reach 30,000 by the end of 2015.

Physical attacks on asylum seekers have been widely reported in national and international news, such as the incident in which protestors threw fireworks and trash at a bus carrying newly-arrived asylum seekers in the southern town of Lahti last month.

Additionally, several protests against the rapidly rising number of refugees entering Finland have been held in the capital Helsinki, and the the northern city of Tornio, where many refugees are crossing the Finnish-Swedish border in order to secure asylum in Finland.

Public anger at the sudden influx of asylum seekers has reached unprecedented highs in Finland, and many have now taken to social media and online news websites to express their hatred and prejudice.

Finland’s arm of the broadcast network MTV, along with local news outlet Helsingin Sanomat, made the decision last month to shut down the comment sections of their online news websites due to the offensive statements readers were posting about the refugee crisis.

“I’d like people to wake up and realize that words and ways of speaking have an impact”, stated Merja Yla-Antilla, editor-in-chief of MTV Finland, “There’s been a lot of talk about hate speech… so we’ve now taken this method into use”.

Yla-Antilla also stated that is was purely a coincidence that both MTV and Helsingin Sanomat made these decisions on exactly the same day.

These actions by MTV and Helsingin Sanomat have come to reflect a wider feeling amongst many in Finland’s media space that whilst free speech is important, the level of hate being freely spilled by members of the public is now detrimental to the story they are trying to tell.

“If people don’t understand their responsibility for their words, then editors have to be able to manage the conversation”, said Hanne Aho, head of Finland’s National Union of Journalists.

Aho stated that the “weak quality discussion” around the issue of refugees and immigration on many Finnish news websites was the primary determining factor in the decision by these agencies to disallow further comments.

However, online news websites have not been the only domain in which anti-refugee sentiment has dominated.

Many have taken to social media to express their controversial views, with members of Finland’s own government joining in the chorus.

In July of this year, Olli Immonen, an MP for the right-wing anti-immigration True Finns Party, took to Facebook to urge his fellow countrymen and women to rise up against the “nightmare of multiculturalism” he felt was emerging in Finland.

“I have strong belief in my fellow fighters”, Immonen stated, “We will fight until the end of our homeland and one true Finnish nation, the victory will be ours”.

Immonen was promptly slammed by members of his party and the ruling coalition they now belong too, but such views are now increasingly common amongst a segment of the Finnish population in the face of the unfolding refugee crisis.

The way in which Finland is struggling to balance the principle of free speech with a strong desire to open its arms to assist those in need is a delicate one, and it is a battle that is sure to be waged on many platforms until this refugee crisis is resolved.