Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen says she is “shocked and profoundly disappointed” after the nation’s Supreme Court convicted her of “hate speech”.
Now, she says she may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Finland’s highest court unanimously cleared her of charges relating to a 2019 tweet featuring a Bible verse.
But lawmakers overturned two acquittals from lower courts and found her, and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, guilty of “hate speech” for expressing traditional views about marriage in a church pamphlet released over 20 years ago.
The former leader of the Christian Democrat Party, who has been fined and ordered to pay her own legal fees, said following the verdict: “I am shocked and profoundly disappointed that the court has failed to recognise my basic human right to freedom of expression. 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.”
“I am taking legal advice on a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This is not about my free speech alone, but that of every person in Finland. A positive ruling would help to prevent other innocent people from experiencing the same ordeal for simply sharing their beliefs.”
The court acknowledged that neither individual sought to promote violence or hatred, and even admitted their behaviour was “not particularly serious,” as revealed by ADF International.
However, in a 3-2 split decision, they ruled that the pair had broken the law because the material had been “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”.
In their ruling, the court took the fact that Räsänen continued to share the relevant article online in 2019 and 2020 into account. They have called for all material deemed offensive to be “removed from public access and destroyed.”
