Religious Freedom Vs. Hate Speech: Finland’s Conviction Of Päivi Räsänen Reverberates Beyond Europe
(ANALYSIS) Finland's Supreme Court found former Minister of the Interior Päivi Räsänen guilty under a “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” statute for a booklet on homosexual relations that she had written and published 22 years before. Also convicted was her colleague, Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola.
In addition, the Supreme Court ordered in their March 26 decision that the book be removed from being sold online and destroyed. Under the European Union's Digital Services Act, the Finnish order now applies to all of Europe — and perhaps even to the United States and beyond.
In a similar vein, on the previous day, the Canadian House of Commons passed a revised bill C-9 outlawing “hate speech” which would remove the current law's protection for good faith religious statements. That same week, Monsignor Jakob Rolland, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Iceland's capital Reykjavík, faced investigation for explaining Catholic teaching during a radio interview.
READ: SCOTUS Delivers Major Win For A Christian Preacher And The Constitution
Räsänen had chaired Finland’s Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015 and was Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2015. The 2004 booklet for which she has been convicted is “Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity.” It is no diatribe: It gives theological arguments explaining the standard historical Christian view.
In 2019, she posted on Instagram a photo of Romans 1:24-27, a text critical of same-sex relations. Prosecutors maintained that this post, together with the earlier booklet, “threatened, defamed or insulted” gay and transgender people, thus violating Article 10 of the Criminal Code. This Article can carry penalties of up to two years' imprisonment as well as fines.
Police then questioned her for almost four hours and concluded that no crime had been committed. However, Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen reopened the case and charged her for both the post and booklet.
On Jan. 24, 2022, the Finnish District Court reviewed Bible passages and struggled to determine Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality and also debated about which interpretation of Scripture should be followed. Subsequently, the court unanimously acquitted Räsänen and Pohjola. However, the ever-zealous prosecutors then appealed to the Helsinki Court of Appeal.
On Nov. 14, 2023, the Appeals court also dismissed all the charges, finding “no reason, on the basis of the evidence received at the main hearing, to assess the case in any respect differently from the District Court.” It also ordered the prosecution to pay the defendants' legal fees.
Paul Coleman, executive director of ADF International and a member of Räsänen’s legal team then noted: “While we celebrate this monumental victory, we also remember that it comes after four years of police investigations, criminal indictments, prosecutions and court hearings.”
As Americans often say of even successful acquittals, "the process is the punishment.”
But Finnish prosecutors, with an obsession akin to Inspector Javert of “Les Misérables,” pressed on and appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued the March 26 judgment.
Inside the verdict
The Supreme Court verdict is complex. It unanimously actually acquitted Räsänen for her 2019 social media post, finding that it did not meet the threshold for a criminal offense. it also noted in particular that she had referenced a biblical text, indicating that simply citing the Bible itself would not constitute unlawful speech.
But in a separate 3-2 ruling, the Court did convict Räsänen and Pohjola for the 2004 booklet. It found them guilty for 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” under a section of the Finnish criminal code criminalizing “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.”
It also held that: “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.” The result was a therefore a fine of 1,800 euros.
The law under which they are now convicted did not actually exist when the booklet was published but the court emphasized that it had been "kept available to the public" online. Consequently, it ruled that the impugned booklet must now be “removed from public access and destroyed.” It is difficult to see how this could be done since the booklet is now readily available across the internet. At the risk of falling afoul of Finnish and European courts and prosecutors, it may be accessed here.
Räsänen is considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and avers “I stand by the teachings of my Christian faith and will continue to defend my and every person’s right to share their convictions in the public square.”
Beyond Finland
Finland's Supreme Court decision, and similar trends in Canada and elsewhere, reveal the increasing intolerance in secular Western regimes. And the effects of Finland's curbs on freedom of religion and speech, as well as its Supreme Court's demand to destroy books, reach well beyond its borders.
Canada has not yet gone as far as Finland. However, as I have outlined before, its current Bill C-9, on "hate speech," removes the existing religious belief defense in the current section 319(2) of the Criminal Code.
To get the votes of the strongly secularist Members of Parliament coming from Quebec, the governing Liberal Party has removed the defense in the original bill that no one will be convicted “if, in good faith, the person expressed … an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”
On March 25, the revised Bill C-9 passed in the House of Commons and now goes to the Canadian Senate.
Elsewhere was also a bad week for freedom of speech and of religion.
In Iceland. Monsignor Jakob Rolland, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Reykjavík, the capital, might face criminal investigation for having explained Catholic teaching on homosexuality during a radio interview. He maintains that he simply sought to explain standard Catholic teaching, that the Church’s role is to accompany individuals who freely seek spiritual guidance while also rejecting coercive practices.
The European Union's Digital Services Act contains no Europe-wide definition of "hate speech" but instead requires social media platforms to conform to the definitions provided by individual member countries.
It adds a qualifier: "Where a content is illegal only in a given Member State, as a general rule it should only be removed in the territory where it is illegal." However, this is only a weak general rule, thus necessarily allowing exceptions, and the internet is famously no respecter of national boundaries. The effect is that social media platforms can be pressured to conform to the Finnish court's restrictive definition of hate speech, at least until another European states enacts an even more repressive rule.
This effect goes far beyond the European Union. The E.U. is seeking to compel American and other social media to conform to its Digital Services Act on the grounds that their content can easily be accessed in Europe. This might mean that your sharing the link provided above to Räsänen's booklet may be held to violate European law. This would certainly be a stretch of the law, but stretching vague laws now appears increasingly common among European prosecutors.
One does not have to be a fan of U.S. Vice President Vance to share the fears he raised in his February 14, 2025, speech to the Munich Security Conference. He criticized European leaders for using "Soviet-era words" like "misinformation" and "disinformation" to silence alternative viewpoints and stated that "in Britain and across Europe, free speech ... is in retreat.”
Vance added that perhaps the greatest threat to Europe was its “internal retreat” from fundamental values like freedom of speech and religion.
Paul Marshall is Wilson Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, director of the Religious Freedom Institute’s South and Southeast Asia Action Team, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and author of over 20 books on religion and politics. His latest book is “Called to be Friends: Called to Serve.”