Finland: Prosecutors Appeal to Supreme Court to Convict Christian Lawmaker Who Posted On Social Media Against Same-Sex Marriage
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Prosecutors in Finland are now appealing to the country’s Supreme Court to pin charges of inciting hate speech on a Christian parliamentarian who posted comments on social media about her opposition to same-sex marriage on religious grounds, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
A member of Finland’s Christian Democrat party, and formerly the Minister of the Interior, Päivi Räsänen was charged in 2021 with three counts of incitement against a minority group, the LGBT community in this instance.The charges brought by Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen fall under a section of Finnish law which criminalizes “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Each charge carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
Räsänen was acquitted on all counts by the Helsinki District Court in 2022, and the lower court’s verdict was then upheld by the Helsinki Court of Appeal in November 2023. Nevertheless, the Prosecutor General is appealing to the Supreme Court for a different outcome.
Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland Bishop Juhana Pohjola is a co-defendant in the case, and he too was acquitted by the District Court. Pohjola was the publisher of booklet with Räsänen wrote 20 years ago in which she states that same-sex marriage is contrary to the teachings of the Bible.
This decision to prosecute Räsänen and Pohjola sparked widespread condemnation not only from Evangelical leaders worldwide but also from Senators and academics in the US. In 2022 five US senators wrote to the US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom warning that the prosecution might lead to a “secular blasphemy law” under which to prosecute Christians, Muslims, and Jews for their religious beliefs.
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