Finland’s Supreme Court has found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” for “insulting” gay people by expressing her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a church pamphlet from 2004. ADF International, which is supporting Räsänen, has more.
In a narrow 3-2 decision, the Finnish Supreme Court has found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” on one charge relating to the expression of her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a 20 year-old church pamphlet. Räsänen has been criminally convicted for publishing the 2004 pamphlet for her church, alongside Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola. The conviction is for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group”. The Supreme Court unanimously acquitted Räsänen for her 2019 Bible verse tweet.
Räsänen was previously unanimously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts.
The long serving parliamentarian and former Minister of the Interior has been convicted for “hate speech” under a section of the Finnish criminal code titled “war crimes and crimes against humanity”. The medical doctor and grandmother of 12 was tried in early 2022 and again in 2023 for expressing her beliefs in a 2019 tweet, which included a Bible verse, in addition to a 2019 radio debate and 2004 church booklet.
After the prosecutor appealed for a third time, the Supreme Court, which heard the case in October 2025, has now ruled on two of the three original charges: concerning the tweet and the church booklet. The Supreme Court was not asked to rule on the radio debate as the prosecution did not appeal it, so Räsänen’s acquittal for the debate stands.
“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,” stated Päivi Räsänen after receiving the judgment.
“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,” added Räsänen.
The Court found Räsänen and the Bishop 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”. It 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 offence.”
The pamphlet was authored by Räsänen in 2004. The Court convicted her on the basis that: “After a preliminary investigation into the matter was launched in 2019, Räsänen continued to share the article on her own internet and social media pages in 2019 and 2020.”
Hellbound and Down 