A unanimous appeals court in Helsinki, Finland, dismissed on Tuesday all hate speech charges for a second time against two evangelicals who had publicly expressed their Bible-based beliefs about marriage and gender.
The appellate court upheld a March 2022 acquittal of parliament member Päivi Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola.
The court said it “has 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. There is therefore no reason to alter the final result of the District Court’s judgment.”
But Mrs. Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola aren’t completely out of the woods: Helsinki attorney Matti Sankamo told a news conference after the verdict that state prosecutor Anu Mantila had told local media she is likely to appeal the court’s ruling to the Supreme Court of Finland.
Mrs. Räsänen was charged in 2021 with “agitation against a minority group” for sharing her Christian beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a 2019 message on Twitter and in a live radio debate that year.
Prosecutors also charged her and Bishop Pohjola over the publication of a church pamphlet in 2004 stating those beliefs. However, her attorneys said the statute under which they were charged was enacted years after the pamphlet was published.
“It isn’t a crime to tweet a Bible verse or to engage in public discourse with a Christian perspective. The attempts made to prosecute me for expressing my beliefs have resulted in an immensely trying four years, but my hope is that the result will stand as a key precedent to protect the human right to free speech. I sincerely hope other innocent people will be spared the same ordeal for simply voicing their convictions,” Mrs. Räsänen said after the verdict.
“For me, this case has been not only a cultural and legal battle but also a spiritual battle. … It’s a question of rights for me, as a pastor and a bishop, and for our church, to teach publicly, what we understand to be the word of God, the created order and the natural law,” Bishop Pohjola said.
Ms. Mantila, the prosecutor, had argued that the issue in the case is whether Christians are free to interpret the Bible.
“You can cite the Bible, but it is Räsänen’s interpretation and opinion about the Bible verses that are criminal. … The point isn’t whether it is true or not, but that it is insulting,” she told an Aug. 31 hearing.
Paul Coleman, executive director of the Christian legal advocacy group ADF International, which aided the defense, said Ms. Mantila’s assertion is wrong.
“At the heart of the prosecutor’s examination of Räsänen was this: Would she recant her beliefs? The answer was no — she would not deny the teachings of her faith. The cross-examination bore all the resemblance of a ’heresy’ trial of the Middle Ages. It was implied that Räsänen had ’blasphemed’ against the dominant orthodoxies of the day,” Mr. Coleman said.
Mrs. Räsänen, who was recently re-elected to an eighth four-year term, said she continues “to work as a member of parliament. We have a busy time in Finnish society with many social and health problems, and I’m very strongly involved in my political career.”
She said that if the Supreme Court takes up an appeal from Ms. Mantila, “I’m ready to continue with my legal team, I’m ready to fight for these freedoms, [as] far as it is needed.”
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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