{"id":23624,"date":"2026-03-26T22:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T22:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/finnish-court-finds-christian-mp-guilty-of-hate-speech\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T22:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T22:54:48","slug":"finnish-court-finds-christian-mp-guilty-of-hate-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/finnish-court-finds-christian-mp-guilty-of-hate-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Finnish court finds Christian MP guilty of ‘hate speech’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

The Finnish Supreme Court has convicted MP Paevvi Rasanen on a charge related to the expression of his Christian beliefs on marriage and sexual morality.<\/p>\n

In a 3\u20132 decision, the court said R\u0101sanen’s criminal conviction over the distribution of a 2004 pamphlet with his Lutheran bishop Juhana Pohjola was for “creating and keeping available to the public a text insulting a group”. A section of the Finnish Criminal Code<\/a> Title \u201cWar Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I am shocked and extremely disappointed that the court has failed to recognize my basic human right to freedom of expression,” Rasanen said. Press release of 26 March<\/a> From the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International. “I stand by the teachings of my Christian faith, and will continue to defend my own and everyone’s right to share their beliefs in a public forum.”<\/p>\n

The court acquitted Rasanen of charges related to the 2019 Bible verse tweet that sparked the MP’s legal battle.<\/p>\n

In this he quoted <\/strong>Romans 1:24\u201327 and questioned how the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland could sponsor an LGBT pride event, asking how what Scripture calls “shame and sin” could be presented as “a matter of pride.”<\/p>\n

Rasanen said she was considering appealing her case to the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

“This is not about my free speech alone, but about every single person in Finland. A positive verdict will help prevent other innocent people from experiencing the same ordeal simply for sharing their beliefs,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The latest decision comes after R\u00e4s\u00e4nen was acquitted of all charges by two lower courts in early 2022 and 2023 over the tweet, pamphlet and 2019 radio debate.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court heard R\u0101sanen’s case again in October 2025 following a third appeal by the prosecution regarding the tweets and pamphlets and delivered its latest judgment on 26 March. The prosecution did not appeal against the radio debate.<\/p>\n

social media reactions<\/h2>\n

ADF senior legal advisor Sean Nelson described the Finnish court’s decision on 26 March as “truly Year Zero, Orwellian thinking”. social media post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I can’t explain how infuriating and unjust this verdict is,” he said. “Nobody filed a complaint about her pamphlet, written 20 years ago. Prosecutors only found out about her Bible tweets after they dug up everything they could.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, reacted to the news social media<\/a>Describing the punishment as “part of a broader trend I am warning of, Western countries are prosecuting Christians.”<\/p>\n

He said, “As a Christian country, America cannot stand idly by and watch as the Christian foundation of the West is destroyed.”<\/p>\n

Father Benedict Kiely, also founder of Nazarean.org weighed in <\/a>on the decision, writing that Rasanen is “the canary in the coal mine for freedom of expression and religious freedom in Europe.”<\/p>\n

“And now the Canary \u2013 and the Bible \u2013 have been found guilty,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Finnish Supreme Court has convicted MP Paevvi Rasanen on a charge related to the expression of his Christian beliefs on marriage and sexual morality. In a 3\u20132 decision, the court said R\u0101sanen’s criminal conviction over the distribution of a 2004 pamphlet with his Lutheran bishop Juhana Pohjola was for “creating and keeping available to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[73,700,841,10570,6254,7562,5925],"class_list":{"0":"post-23624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-christian","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-finds","11":"tag-finnish","12":"tag-guilty","13":"tag-hate","14":"tag-speech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23626,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23624\/revisions\/23626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}