2017-04-29 Sat

An execution during the Finnish Civil War was portrayed on a coin belonging to a special five-coin set from Finland that celebrates 100 years of the country’s independence. People were against the designs and the Mint had to scrap them within 24 hours. The designs were scrapped as public angst was expressed on social media and news portals.

The design represented the conflict between Soviet communists and the conservative Whites. Suggestions proposed by Collector Coin Committee were accepted by the Minister of Finance who later publically regretted about what had happened. The coins will be redesigned from scrap. The coins had to go on sale on 4th May, with an official release date of 18th May.

The earlier design was selected as per the Committee since the Finnish Civil War was the most important hurdle Finland had to face during that particular era. Challenges were to be portrayed on the obverse and the achievements, on the reverse.

The coin design representing the time period of 2000 to 2017 was called “Global Justice”. It recreated a photograph where a Turkish police officer carries a dead body of a child in 2015 after a boat carrying refugees was trying to reach Greece from Turkey. There was a lot of criticism against this design as well since people believed that there is no relation between these events that took place in Turkey and Finland’s independence.