Finland, the UK and freedom of speech

[Turmericisfashionable]

The Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen has strong religious views on homosexuality (and some other issues, including abortion). Over 20 years ago she wrote a pamphlet called "Male and Female He Created Them – Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity" . In the pamphlet, she described homosexuality as a "sexual deviation" and an "aberration of psychosexual development".
She and her publisher (a Lutheran bishop) have very recently been prosecuted for this (so over 20 years after publication), for hate speech against gay people. They were convicted by Finland's Supreme Court. Päivi Räsänen is now taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
She has now been denied clearance to travel to the UK, she assumes because of her conviction, as has the Lutheran bishop publisher. She is supposed to give a speech at a religious freedom conference in Belfast in August.

There’s freedom of speech then calling people sexual deviants, aberration??? We would rather not have hate speech here!

That’s interesting. I’ve always assumed that Finland is a mostly secular society

Personally, I think it's bonkers to prosecute things like this. There may well be some printed materials that I'd support banning, but I can't think of any. There's a range of opinions on every topic, people should be free to dispute or disregard them as they see fit.

I understand they're keynote speakers at that conference. Perhaps it'll be rescheduled to a time when she can enter the UK.

Just had another thought? Is there a chance she prompted this herself, in order to make a point about religious freedoms?

It is strange to prosecute her for a book written 20 years ago. Many people’s views have evolved over that amount of time. It seems like a hindsight-prosecution.

That’s still just her opinion. So what if other people don’t like it? It’s her own belief.
Also who’s “we”? Someone wanted her to speak here as she was invited to do so.

Prompted what?

The formal complaint.

Hate speech has a very limited specific definition. That doesn't fall under it.

@GarlicEverywhere She's always had and expressed controversial opinions. But as far as the hate speech conviction is concerned, it appears that she was investigated and then prosecuted on several fronts after she criticised the Lutheran Church's participation in LGBTQ Pride events in 2019. The pamphlet issue is the one she lost on. These types of charges can apparently result in up to 2 years in prison, but in her case she got a large fine. She's been fighting in the courts for years.

In the pamphlet, she described homosexuality as a "sexual deviation" and an "aberration of psychosexual development".

Sounds pretty hateful to me. And it was printed on a pamphlet for distribution.

I don’t like the idea that people can be stopped from travelling if they say something that people don’t like. The way devolution is going, that could make people’s worlds very small in the future. But I also think that hate speech has no place in a fair society.
The problem always comes with defining hate speech. If we define it too tightly, people can’t challenge obviously batshit statements such as “tomatoes deserve human rights” because “no they don’t” becomes tomatoist. But at the same time I don’t think “exterminate all gingers” or similar ever has a place in a fair society as it could incite people to act on it. As an LGB person, I personally don’t like what this woman has published and disseminated but I understand that it is her belief. I think on the balance, this seems similar to when that Dutch far right woman wasn’t let into the UK to speak.
In this day and age, though, these people can just reach their audience via Zoom so how effective is it to bar their physical presence? Compared to stopping them experiencing new things and meeting fresh people in a different country (that might inspire them to new perspectives). It also doesn’t sit right with me that she’s being punished now for something from 20 years ago where no one was raped or died; does Finland not have a statute of limitations or the idea of spent convictions?
So I really don’t know where I stand on this one. It just seems performative tbh and will galvanise some people to rally around her.

The UK like many other governments has the legal authority to deny entry to a foreign national based on their character, conduct, or associations under "non-conducive to the public good" grounds. Decisions can be made based on an individual's general behaviour, past conduct, character or associations that pose a perceived threat or are deemed undesirable for UK society. It's applied in cases involving national security concerns, extremist behaviour, public disorder risks or serious criminality overseas and domestically.

Denying this individual entry is no different to denying your garden variety islamic hate preacher so while this refusal is a denial of freedom of speech there's never been entitlement to free speech absolutism. If there was then anything could go including the promotion of pedophilia.

She is free to say what she likes, but free speech has caveats and consequences, if the government decides someone has expressed an opinion that will damage 'community cohesion', they have the right to deny them entry. Whether we want our government to decide on such things is up to us (yeah I know, like we have any control over them). If people disagree with the decision they're free to exercise their right to speak freely about it.
I'm concerned that she's been prosecuted for something she said 20 years ago, especially as it seems to be politically motivated, but that's Finland not us.

I would exercise my right to free speech and criticise our government if it decided to trawl through everyone's background and start prosecuting it's citizens for crimes from decades ago.
As for people who make unilateral decisions about what 'we' want here, yeah thanks, but I don't want you making my choices any more than I want the government doing it.

But the question of illegality centres on incitement to hatred, not on the nature of the views expressed. We do (or should) have complete legal freedom to express offensive opinions.

There seems to be an inconsistent approach to this by the UK government. A number of men preaching hate against the West, our values and homosexuals are allowed into the UK.

One, from Egypt even received an effusive person the now former Prime Minister. He had posted racist content and incitement to kill Jews.

As an LGB person, I personally don’t like what this woman has published and disseminated but I understand that it is her belief.

As a lesbian, I can see that what she has said is offensive to a lot of people, but I don't think it's right that we censor people for being 'offensive'. It's absolutely about how we define things, and how far do we go. I don't really know all the ins and outs, but if what someone reported up thread is all she said, then, it's offensive, but I wouldn't ban her from the UK.

I am also not personally threatened by her speech. I know a lot of people think that being gay is immoral or just wrong. That's fine. I don't care, and as long as I have my rights in law, from my point of view, people should be able to say what they want.

Who gets to decide what is "hate speech"?

Freedom of conscience is far more important.

If you are going to ban people for professing beliefs that homosexuality is aberrant or transgressive or ignorant, you are going to end up banning an awful lot of people.

A minority of Christians and a lot of British Muslims.

If you are just going to ban the publications, how will it work? 70% of British families own a Bible and good luck trying to ban the Quran.

From an earlier ADF article (yes, I know who ADF are and what they stand for, thanks). (My underline):

HELSINKI (26 March 2026) – In a narrow 3–2 decision, the Finnish Supreme Court has found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” on one charge relating to the expression of her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a twenty-year-old church pamphlet. Räsänen has been criminally convicted for publishing the 2004 pamphlet for her church, alongside Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola. The conviction is for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group”. The Supreme Court unanimously acquitted Räsänen for her 2019 Bible verse tweet.
Räsänen was previously unanimously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts....
Summary of judgment
The Court found Räsänen and the Bishop guilty for having “made available to the public and kept available to the public opinions that insult homosexuals as a group on the basis of their sexual orientation”. It held that: “it must be taken into account that the text forming the basis for the conviction did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred. The conduct is therefore not particularly serious in terms of the nature of the offense”.

This 'hate speech' law does seem to be authoritarian overreach. I agree with PP, that the UK decision-making around the granting of ETAs is inconsistent.
I wonder if Finland has an equivalent of our Free Speech Union.

https://adfinternational.org/news/breaking-finlands-supreme-court-acquits-parliamentarian-on-bible-tweet-convicts-her-for-insult-in-20-year-old-church

Here is more information on how her Electronic Travel Authorisation (from this summer people have to get one to enter the UK) was issued automatically and then withdrawn shortly before her planned trip to the UK. She wasn't given a reason.
Apparently as well as receiving a hefty fine over the leaflet criticising homosexuality, she's been ordered to excise the objectionable words from it.
Päivi Räsänen denied entry to the United Kingdom – Document News

Looking at Finland's Supreme Court judgement against her, I think she might well face similar legal proceedings in Scotland, under the Scottish Hate Crime and Public Order Act.

Räsänen describes what happened in this submission to the US House of Representatives:

https://share.google/zK2NAF7k1FTCgO6DR

What caught my eye is that the trouble started when she criticised her church for sponsoring Pride 2019.

Churches are, of course, allowed to have their own ideas about what constitutes a sin, and this only becomes a problem if they insist on rewriting the law of the land, or incite their members to break the law.

Räsänen is against gay marriage, abortion, and the ordination of women (the latter, again, being a matter only for the church): her views are much the same as those of the late Ann Widdecombe, which I recall were quite freely expressed. This suggests that Finland are much twitchier than the UK when it comes to so-called hate speech. Or should I call it 'anti-rights' speech.....?

I disagree with her opinions, but I hope she wins her case.

What's your opinion on her OP ?

The church she criticised is a powerful organisation in Finland, it's not the official state church but it might as well be. I can't help thinking that the reason for the charges has more to do with a state organisation shutting down criticism.
I hope she wins her case too.