In 2019, Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen tweeted a Bible verse. On Tuesday, she received a full and unanimous acquittal for the criminal charges she has battled over the past four years under Finland’s “hate speech” laws for her tweet. With the state having expended enormous resources to prosecute and punish Räsänen, along with Lutheran bishop Juhana Pohjola, free speech in Finland has won the day, but at a very high cost.
The tweet was simple — Räsänen questioned her church leadership for participating in a Helsinki pride event, posting a Scripture passage from the Book of Romans to underscore her point. Following this, she was subjected to invasive police interrogations, which delved into the core of her personal faith as a Christian — and then to criminal charges. It’s hard to fathom that Finland’s former minister of the interior — an elected official for nearly 30 years — could be deemed a criminal for the mere act of voicing her deeply held beliefs in the public square.
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