by Martin Davie, Christian Today
On 26 March the Finnish Christian MP Päivi Räsänen, together with the Finnish Lutheran bishop Juhana Pohjola, was found guilty in the Finnish Supreme Court on a 3-2 verdict of the crime of incitement against a minority group because of what she had written in a 2004 pamphlet Male and Female He Created Them – Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity, a pamphlet which the bishop published.
The prosecution of Räsänen, which began back in 2019, has attracted worldwide attention as an attack on the principle of freedom of speech. The article published on the website of the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal organisation which supported her defence, is typical of this response: “Across the world, freedom of speech is recognized as one of the most fundamental human rights. All major human rights treaties protect this freedom, and every democratic society is reliant on the ability of its citizens to speak freely.
“As a democratic country, Finland claims to protect free speech. But its prosecutor general has spent years doing the opposite.”
Päivi, ADF noted, was actually criminally charged under Finland’s ‘War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity’ law for ‘agitation against a minority group.’
Despite being cleared twice of all charges by lower courts, Finland’s Supreme Court sadly found Päivi guilty 3-2 for the 2004 pamphlet she published. The court unanimously upheld her acquittal for a tweet about same-sex marriage, while a separate charge relating to comments made during a radio debate was already acquitted in lower courts.
ADF added, “While it is right and just that these two acquittals stand, the conviction for publishing a decades-old pamphlet marks a dark day for freedom of expression.”
This article, and others like them, are accurate as far as they go, but what I want to consider here is that, in addition to such sentiments, there is the problematic nature of the specific reason given for the Supreme Court’s decision to convict Räsänen.