Stephanie Zachrisson

It began with a photo.

This year's Miss Finland, Sara Javce, was using her fingers to pull her face upwards, squinting at the camera.

The picture was posted by her friend with the caption, having dinner with a Chinese person.

The post caused outrage and the pageant winner was called childish, embarrassing and racist.

Mari Suomi is a Finnish-Japanese content creator.

Sara Javcha said she had been robbing her temples because of a headache and wouldn't have captured the photo in that way.

She said as a person with an immigrant background herself, she would never accept any kind of racism and apologise to the Asian community.

Her crown and title was removed and given to this year's Miss Finland runner-up.

But the scandal quickly made its way into the political arena.

Three members of the right-wing populist Finns Party, one of the parties in Finland's coalition government, posted images of themselves on social media making the same gesture, saying it was in support of Javce, criticising the decision to strip her of her title.

Finnish-Asian TikToker Gideon Hagström posted a video which drew attention to the photo scandal.

And the scandal has prompted headlines in Chinese, South Korean and Japanese media, creating a PR crisis abroad.

The national airline Finnair said people were leaving comments on its social media channels, warning people against travelling to Finland.

Prime Minister Petri Orpo condemned the Finn's party members' posts.

And after a meeting on Tuesday, the chairs of the government's parliamentary group strongly criticised what they characterised as rude and inappropriate comments that were damaging Finland's reputation.

It's not the first time the coalition government has been embroiled in a racism row.

Only three months ago, it swore there would be no more scandals.

Whether the lawmakers will face any sanctions for their behaviour will be decided by the Finns party later this week.

I think it's very, very good news indeed.

I mean, my view is that the more undergraduates can sing while they're at university, the better.