The newly rolled-out trial against Päivi Räsänen could serve as an opportunity for Brussels to make hate speech an EU-wide criminal offense in the future. Anyone who postulates that marriage between a man and a woman is the only valid one, or speaks of “gender insensitivity” could end up like the Finnish interior minister.
The Päivi Räsänen case is a proxy war over freedom of expression. It could become a precedent concerning the red lines of what may be said — and put religious freedom on the index like traditional European values. The police have been investigating the committed Lutheran since 2019 because she criticized the cooperation of her church with the “Pride” movement.
A tweet in which she quoted a passage from Romans became the stumbling block. Further investigations turned up a 20-year-old pamphlet to support Räsänen’s “hate speech”: In it, together with Bishop Juhana Pohjola, she had represented the traditional Christian understanding of marriage and family. The title? “Male and female he created them.” Pohjola also ended up in the dock.
Both Sides Want A Precedent
The staging was reminiscent of a show trial. The public prosecutor found the Christian motto “Love the sinner, hate the sin” to be too much. Yes, the word sin alone was already “hurting.” For the observer it was clear from the start that an example was to be made here of how far the Moloch of the new woke ideology could go. To the relief of most involved, the trial ended in acquittal. The Finnish public prosecutor’s office had to bear the costs. It was a victory for freedom of expression — but a premature one.
The public prosecutor’s office appealed the verdict last Friday. Räsänen, a member of the Finnish Parliament, said she was “dismayed.” At the same time, she sees it as an opportunity. The prosecutor’s decision could lead to “the case going all the way to the Supreme Court, which offers the opportunity to set a positive precedent for freedom of speech and religion for all Finns.”
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From Gates of Vienna, translated from German publication Tichys Einblick. Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Tichys Einblick.
