The conclusion to the four-year high-profile legal case against Päivi Räsänen, a former Finnish government minister and doctor with an evangelical Christian faith, has ended with a surprise.

Following two victories in which she was unanimously acquitted by both the Helsinki District Court and the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court has now convicted her of inciting hatred and “insulting” LGBT people. It has done so on the basis of Chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code, which deals with “ethnic agitation” and condemns the defamation or insulting of vulnerable groups.

Specifically, the court says the booklet Mieheksi ja naiseksi hän heidät loi (“Male and Female He Created Them”), published in 2004, contains, offensive ideas.

The conviction announced today is for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group”. At one point in the text, the author defined homosexuality as a psychosexual development disorder.

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Räsänen has been sentenced to a fine equivalent to 20 days’ wages (in her case, 1,800 euros) and she will also have to pay her own legal costs.

It is likely that physical and digital copies of the booklet can no longer be distributed in the current form, following the ruling. The excerpts that are offensive would have to be removed. 

The head of the publishing house that released it, the Finnish Lutheran Foundation, Bishop Juhana Pohjola, has also been convicted with 20 days of fine, and the publishing house will pay a fine of 5,000 euros.

According to the Supreme Court, “religious freedom does not protect the expression of views unrelated to religion within the framework of a religious text”. The court argues that deeming Räsänen and Pohjola’s conduct punishable is not incompatible with the freedom of expression or religion guaranteed by the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The fact that Räsänen is a doctor of medicine, the court considers, exacerbates the potential adverse effect of her words about LGBT people.

The ruling was not reached unanimously by the judges, but by a vote of 3 to 2.

Räsänen: “Schocked” and considering taking her case to Europe

Speaking to the press at the Finnish Parliament, Päivi Räsänen expressed her disappointment, as she believes that the freedom of expression and religion of all citizens is being put at risk.

“I am shocked, I was prepared for a very different ruling,” she told the press on the morning of 26 March.

“If this kind of scrutiny is used to analyse all kinds of communities and their texts and writings, we’re going to be setting quite a few book burnings,” she said, criticising the fact that a pamphlet published over two decades ago was analysed in such detail by the Supreme Court.

She emphasised once again that she would write some parts of her book differently today, but that other medical opinions from that time have also been revised today.

She added, “I think it’s still perfectly legal to say that same-sex relationships are against God’s will and a sin.”

In previous court hearings and also in public appearances, Räsänen has insisted that she considers all people equal in dignity and worth, and that it was never her intention to insult LGBT people. “We are all sinners and we all need mercy,” she insisted again today in front of the television cameras.

The next step: European courts

The Christian Democratic Party Member of Parliament also emphasised that she remains faithful to her Christian stance on human sexuality, and that her lawyers are already looking into the possibility of taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

“Of course, together with my lawyers, I will analyse this carefully and I hope that the European Court of Human Rights will criticise Finland for the decision taken by the Supreme Court.”

In a press release sent to Evangelical Focus and other international media, the Christian MP added: “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”.

On taking the case to its final conclusion in European courts, she adds: “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”.

No conviction for the 2019 tweets

The Supreme Court also announced today that it has dismissed, in this case unanimously, the prosecution’s request in another parallel case, the one that in 2019 triggered the entire investigation against Räsänen.

The message on Facebook and Twitter in which Räsänen quoted Romans 1 to criticise the possible participation of the Lutheran Church (of which she is a member and her husband a reverend) in that year’s LGBT Pride March in the capital is considered freedom of expression and a lawful use of a religious text.

Evangelical Focus has followed the case since its inception in 2019. Read all news and analysis we have published around the Päivi Räsänen case here. 

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