According to Eronen, such symbols would inform police about an individual's background so that they would not need to ask "every dark-haired person to show their ID." She suggested that people arriving from various countries be made to wear symbols indicating their origin and that "suspicious individuals" should have a microchip installed under their skin so they could be tracked more easily.
The blog posting on the Uusi Suomi online newspaper site has since been deleted. The site's editor, Markku Huusko, wrote on Thursday that the opinion piece "went beyond the realm of good taste".
In Nazi Germany, those believed to be Jews, Roma and homosexuals were forced to wear armbands.
"Well-intentioned and funny"
"I absolutely did not mean it seriously; it was intended as satire," Eronen told Yle's Swedish-language news. She said it was intended as a humorous response to a news story about police stopping foreigners to check their identity papers.
"Of course I can only blame my own ignorance. The strong reactions to it were to be expected," added Eronen.
In a blog posting of his own on Wednesday, Hirvisaari defended his assistant's comments, calling them "well-intentioned and funny". He lashed out at Uusi Suomi for its "pathetic lack of a sense of humour" in its decision to delete the posting. He re-published her piece on his own website.
Hirvisaari hired Eronen, from the eastern town of Lieksa, as his new parliamentary assistant in January. A month earlier, Hirvisaari was convicted of incitement against an ethnic group for comments he made on the Uusi Suomi site early last year before he was elected to Parliament.
