My Criminal Conviction Is a Terrible Blow to Free Speech in Europe

While some European leaders may insist that free speech is alive and well on our continent, what has happened to me tells a very different story.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of my country, Finland, delivered a ruling that should alarm anyone who values democratic freedoms. In a deeply contradictory judgment, it unanimously upheld my acquittal for a Bible verse shared on X in 2019, and in a narrow 3–2 decision, convicted me of “hate speech” for a church pamphlet I wrote over twenty years ago.