Hidden in Plain Sight
book by Juha Suoranta
Hidden in Plain Sight (Finnish: Piilottajan päiväkirja) is a non-fiction book by Juha Suoranta. The book—based on the author's journal—is about his attempt to help a minor asylum seeker in Finland. In Finland, the book attracted publicity in newspapers, magazines, and blogosphere.
Description
Hidden in Plain Sight is a non-fiction book by Juha Suoranta. The book is based on the author's journal during an effort to assist Ashraf Sahil—a minor asylum seeker in Finland—and to help him avoid deportation to inhuman conditions.
Plot
Sahil, who as a young child had fled with his family from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the 1990, was first sent to Iran from where he was carried to Greece through Turkey by human smugglers. From there he traveled across Europe to Finland in summer 2008. The Finnish Immigration officials did not grant him a due asylum process but instead imposed a deportation when the author received an e-mail request for help from his sociologist friend in Minneapolis.
Suoranta states that he could not tolerate a situation "where a young person was about to be sent into an uncertain, perhaps life-threatening, situation. If it was in my power to do something, I had to do something....
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hidden in Plain Sight” as book by Juha Suoranta. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as book by Juha Suoranta. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5752058. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990 and 2008.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Hidden in Plain Sight” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.