The Supreme Court of Finland on Thursday (March 26) found a former government minister guilty of “hate speech” for her biblical views on marriage following two prior acquittals by lower courts.
In a 3-2 decision, the court ruled against Päivi Räsänen for expressing her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a 20-year-old church pamphlet. The court also criminally convicted Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola for publishing the 2004 pamphlet, according to legal rights group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.
The court levied fines of several thousand euros on both Räsänen and Pohjola and ordered the removal and destruction of the impugned statements. Räsänen has been sentenced to a fine equivalent to 20 days’ wages (in her case, 1,800 euros) and she will also have to pay her own legal costs, according to Evangelical Focus. Pohjola was also given a 20-day fine, and his publishing house, Finnish Lutheran Foundation, must pay a fine of 5,000 euros.
The convictions were based on “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group,” the court ruled.
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