On Thursday, the Finnish Supreme Court convicted Päivi Räsänen of “hate speech” under the “war crimes and crimes against humanity” section of the Finnish criminal code, for a booklet she co-authored with Bishop Juhana Pohjola in 2004. Bishop Pohjola was also found guilty.
At Fulcrum7, we have been covering this case for over six years, beginning with this February, 2020, article, when the case was in the investigation stage, and continuing with this piece, in May, 2021, noting that Räsänen and Bishop Puhjola had been formally charged with crimes. Here, we noted that the trial was to begin January 24th, 2022. On March 30, 2022, the trial court dismissed all charges.
Two issues were being litigated. The first was a tweet of a picture of the Finnish-language translation of Romans 1:24-27. Yesterday, the Finnish Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of all charges related to that tweet, so Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola won a final victory on that issue.
The second issue was a booklet that Räsänen had co-authored, in 2004, with Bishop Pohjola. On this issue, the Finnish Supreme Court, in a 3 to 2 decision, reversed the trial court’s factual finding and found Räsänen and Pohjola guilty. The court noted:
“It must be taken into account that the text forming the basis for the conviction did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred. The conduct is therefore not particularly serious in terms of the nature of the offense.” They nevertheless ruled the defendants guilty of “having made available to the public and kept available to the public opinions that insult homosexuals as a group on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
Räsänen has been ordered to pay a fine of €1,800 (U.S. $2,076); the bishop has been fined €1,100 (U.S. $1,269), and the foundation that published the booklet has been fined €5,000 (U.S. $5,766).
“I am shocked and profoundly disappointed that the court has failed to recognize my basic human right to freedom of expression,” Räsänen said in response to the verdict. “I stand by the teachings of the Christian faith and will continue to defend my and every person’s right to share their convictions in the public square. I am taking legal advice on a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.”
The Finnish Supreme Court is majority Leftist, and that Leftist majority felt compelled to salvage the seven-year-old ideologically-motivated prosecution, despite the fact that the police had concluded that no laws had been broken, and the trial court, which heard the full evidence, had dismissed all charges.
Paul Coleman of Alliance Defending Freedom International, a member of Räsänen’s legal team, stated, “Over the course of the last seven years we’ve had three judges at the district court acquit Päivi of all charges, three judges at the court of appeal acquit Päivi of all charges, and then in this case, two out of the five or three out of the six, if you include the legal advisor, also acquitted Päivi of all charges.”
The 2004 booklet was written over a decade before same-sex marriage was legalized in Finland, and it violated no laws, nor any interpretations of any laws, at the time it was first published. But the woke Finnish Supreme Court has taken the position that authors must hunt down and destroy all copies of previous publications that violate today’s standards, which compel universal praise and celebration of sodomy, on pain of criminal prosecution.
Matti Sankamo, another of Räsänen’s lawyers, observed that the case could have dire consequences for any publisher who allows older materials to remain in circulation, as “any booklet or pamphlet or writing, within twenty years ago, could become illegal in Finland … unfortunately, the majority opinion was such that . . . it will have an impact in Finland when it comes to . . . older material.”
“The resources devoted to this process and the message it sends should concern anyone who values a free society,” Räsänen said. Exactly. The time and money the Finnish state devoted to prosecuting an old woman for quoting the Bible is remarkable. It shows how devoted the worldwide Left is to destroying Christianity. Whatever other goals the Left cherishes, they are far behind the fanatical devotion to ridding the world of Christians and Christianity.
Yet Räsänen remains positive and optimistic:
“I’m very convinced that this process has not been in vain. I have gotten thousands and thousands of messages from people who have told me that they have been encouraged following this case, encouraged to read the Bible, to pray, and people who have told me that they have found Christ and mercy through this case. I have been so happy that I have gotten so many chances to speak not only about the issues of gender and marriage, but to [speak] about the message of the Gospel—that the solution to the problem of sin is in the Bible.
I believe that this process has been in God’s hands, and even though I am disappointed and even shocked about this conviction that I got today, I trust in God, and I believe that it is also in God’s hands. There is some purpose for this situation where we are now. I trust in God.”