Finnish Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen on Friday (July 24) announced that she has officially filed her appeal of a hate speech conviction with the European Court of Human Rights.
The move is the latest front in a seven-year battle with landmark implications for freedom of speech and religion. The Supreme Court of Finland convicted Räsänen, a member of parliament since 1995 and former interior minister, in a narrow 3-2 decision on March 26.
The conviction centered on statements expressing biblical views on marriage and human sexuality in a 2004 booklet titled “Male and Female He Created Them.” The court fined Räsänen 1,800 euros ($1,950) and ordered her to cover her legal costs, overturning two previous acquittals by lower courts.
“I have filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights challenging the judgment of the Finnish Supreme Court,” Räsänen said. “I hope that the Court in Strasbourg will find that the judgment issued in Finland violates the freedoms of expression and religion protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Räsänen stressed that the publication serves a religious purpose to present the Christian understanding of marriage based on the Bible.
“The book as a whole falls within the protection of freedom of religion, contrary to the approach taken by the majority of the Supreme Court, which isolated individual sentences from their broader context,” Räsänen said.
She pointed out that the Supreme Court convicted her not for writing the 2004 booklet, but for republishing it on social media in November 2019 to defend herself against public criticism. Police had initially reviewed the publication and concluded it contained no grounds for investigation, but the Prosecutor General subsequently ordered a pre-trial investigation.
Räsänen also rejected the Supreme Court’s assertion that her writings treat homosexuals as inferior.
“This is not true,” she said. “In my book, I repeatedly state that all people have equal human value.”
Räsänen warned that the ruling creates severe legal uncertainty. Across three levels of Finnish courts, nine out of 12 judges found her writings contained nothing criminal.
“This demonstrates the lack of legal certainty and the arbitrariness of the interpretations involved,” she said. “Years of police investigations and court proceedings discourage public discussion on important contemporary issues.”
The conviction has already caused international fallout, with U.K. authorities recently barring Räsänen from entering the country after she applied for an Electronic Travel Authorization. Officials canceled her ETA after she disclosed her conviction on the application form.
British authorities similarly banned Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland. The Finnish Supreme Court convicted Pohjola alongside Räsänen for publishing the 2004 pamphlet, issuing him a 20-day fine and fining his publishing house, the Finnish Lutheran Foundation, 5,000 euros ($5,400).
Pohjola, who joined the appeal to the European court, warned against state control over church teachings.
“If authorities can censor religious teaching and dictate how faith leaders instruct their followers, religion becomes a tool of the state rather than a means to freedom and human flourishing,” Pohjola said.
Legal advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom International represents Räsänen and Pohjola in their appeal.
“Päivi Räsänen faces criminal conviction for peacefully expressing her Christian beliefs,” said Lorcán Price, legal counsel for ADF International. “Her ban from entering the United Kingdom is completely disproportionate and unnecessary.”
Price urged the European Court of Human Rights to accept the case to defend basic democratic principles.
“If peaceful expression like a decades-old church booklet can face criminalization and retroactive censorship, free and open debate in Europe is no more,” Price said.
Despite years of legal battles, Räsänen remains firm in her stance.
“From the very beginning, I have said that I will remain faithful to my conviction, rooted in a Christian worldview based on the Bible,” she said. “I do not believe that anything I have written has violated the law. I will continue this fight for freedom of speech and faith with confidence and hope.”
