According to prosecutors in Helsinki, the mother and sister of Finnish rap star Musta Barbaari (real name James Nikander), face charges stemming from an altercation with plainclothes police officers while waiting in a taxi queue last summer.
Nikander's mother, who was born in the east African country of Tanzania, faces a charge of disobeying a public official and his sister faces a charge of refusing to follow police orders.
According to the prosecutor, Nikander's mother and sister were asked by police to show their passports during an immigration spot check, but the pair refused to show them.
Incident went viral
The July 2016 incident received widespread media coverage after Nikander wrote about it on social media. In his post, which remains on his Facebook page, Nikander alleged that plainclothes police officers had mistreated his mother and sister.
He claimed that when his mother and sister refused to show identification the officers put them in handcuffs and treated them roughly.
Nikander also alleged that police had stopped his sister from video recording the incident and took away her camera-equipped phone. Nikander said after his sister's phone was returned, the footage she had recorded was no longer on the device.
At the start of the investigation last year, investigators also examined the behaviour of the officers, but that part of the probe was laid to rest because investigators found the officers had acted lawfully.
July 2016: Non-Discrimination Ombudsman speaks up
Some time after the incident, Rainer Hiltunen from the office of the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman said that the ongoing illegal immigration checks appeared to be based on ethnic profiling.
In an interview on a Radio Suomi programme last summer, Hiltunen said that although people are obliged to tell the police their personal information when asked, no one – including foreigners staying in Finland – is expected by law to carry their passport.
Hiltunen said the basis for illegal immigration spot checks – like the one that targeted rapper Musta Barbaari's mother and sister – should be in specific, accurate information, not simply a suspicion that somebody is foreign.