Finland's Supreme Court has heard charges of “hate speech” against a Christian member of parliament over a Bible tweet
Finland's Supreme Court confirmed Friday that Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen will face trial for a third time over her five-year-old Bible verse petition that criticized the Finnish Lutheran Church for promoting LGBT “pride month.”
Räsänen, who led Finland's Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015 and served as the country's interior minister from 2011 to 2015, is being dragged into court again despite being acquitted twice by lower courts on hate crime charges. statement by lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.
The police began investigating the grandmother of 11 soon after her tweet from 2019 in which she posted a photo of the book of Romans and questioned how the Finnish Lutheran church could agree with “shame and sin” being presented as “a matter of pride.”
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Investigators also dredged up a brochure she published in 2004 with Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, titled “Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity.”
In April 2021, after subjecting her to 13 hours of questioning over several months, Finland's attorney general used Räsänen's tweet, pamphlet and radio interview to charge her with three counts of “agitation against a minority group”, which falls under the umbrella of the “war crimes and crimes against humanity” section in Finnish law.
Pohjola was also charged for having published Räsänen's pamphlet two decades ago.
The Helsinki Court of Appeal unanimously acquitted Räsänen and Pohjola in November, which followed a similar acquittal by the three-judge Helsinki District Court in March 2022.
The state prosecutor is appealing for the third time their acquittal on two of the charges, demanding that the two face tens of thousands of euros in fines and that their work be censored. Räsänen's next court date has not yet been determined.
The situation attracted international media attention and caused outrage from human rights experts.
“In my case, the investigation lasted almost five years, involved false accusations, several lengthy police interrogations totaling more than 13 hours, preparations for court hearings, the District Court, and a hearing in the Court of Appeal,” Räsänen said in a statement.
“This was not only about my opinions, but about everyone's freedom of expression. I hope that with the verdict of the Supreme Court, others would not have to suffer the same ordeal. I considered it a privilege and an honor to defend freedom of expression, which is a fundamental right in a democratic state,” she added.
Paul Coleman, managing director of ADF International, compared Räsänen's case to something from the Middle Ages and warned of “creeping censorship” afflicting Europe's historically free nations.
“In a democratic Western nation in 2024, no one should be tried for their faith – yet during the prosecution of Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola, we saw something akin to a 'heresy' trial, where Christians are dragged through court for holding beliefs that differ. of the approved orthodoxy of the day,” Coleman said.
The state's persistence in going after Räsänen and Pohjola for nearly half a decade despite multiple acquittals is “alarming,” Coleman said, fearing “that the process is the punishment in such cases, resulting in a chill on free speech for all citizens watching.”
“Their right to speak freely is everyone's right to speak freely,” he added.
European governments have increasingly cracked down on speech critical of homosexuality in recent years.
Earlier this month, France's gender equality minister Aurore Bergé called for the prosecution of Rev. Matthieu Raffray, a Catholic priest who drew the ire of the state for describing homosexual tendencies as a “weakness” that must be fought like any other sin.
In Malta, Matthew Grech faced criminal charges under the country's conversion therapy ban last year for giving his Christian testimony about leaving a homosexual lifestyle on a radio show. The radio hosts who gave him a platform were also charged.
Speaking of proposed anti-hate legislation in Ireland that would apply to sexual orientation, ADF CEO Kristen Wagoner told The Christian Post in December that her organization perceives a “global trend toward censorship.”
“And it's not just disrespect for free speech; it's an active purpose to silence speech by the government,” she said, adding that the United States is not immune to such tendencies despite the US Constitution.
Source: www.christianpost.com