Four days before her flight from the United States, the United Kingdom withdrew Päivi Räsänen’s travel authorisation for a planned layover at Heathrow Airport.

Räsänen is a Finnish MP who has served in Parliament for more than three decades, a former Interior Minister, and a longstanding member of Finland’s parliamentary friendship group with the UK Parliament.

Her Electronic Travel Authorisation application had received automatic approval for her July stopover before British authorities withdrew it. The reason for the withdrawal was not stated in the decision beyond suggesting she was “not eligible for an ETA”. This has thrown into doubt Räsänen’s plans to travel to Belfast to speak at a conference in late August. 

She believes the decision followed from her conviction, four months earlier, by Finland’s Supreme Court, for a church pamphlet she co-authored 22 years ago.

The pamphlet – “Male and Female He Created Them” – reflected mainstream Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality, written for her Lutheran church in 2004.

“I find it shocking and deeply ironic that in a democratic country like the UK, I am being prevented from speaking at a conference about fundamental freedoms due to my conviction for ‘hate speech’,” she said.

Two lower courts had unanimously acquitted Räsänen on all charges. Prosecutors appealed both results. 

Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola were convicted under a 2011 incitement provision that appears, in the Finnish criminal code, under the heading “war crimes and crimes against humanity”. 

The court found the booklet “did not contain incitement to violence or comparable threat-like fomenting of hatred”. It concluded, nevertheless, that the text had insulted a group on the basis of sexual orientation – and that this was sufficient to ground a criminal conviction. The conduct, the court noted, was “not particularly serious”.

Shortly following the transit incident, Räsänen filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that the European Convention protects expression that “offends, shocks or disturbs”. Bishop Pohjola and the Luther Foundation Finland are appealing alongside her, represented by HRLA ally ADF International.

Whether that principle still constrains hate speech law applied to peaceful religious expression is now before Europe’s highest court.

“Appealing my conviction is about much more than a fine or a decades-old church booklet,” said Räsänen, reported by ADF International. “My case stands to determine whether the fundamental rights of religious freedom and free speech are still protected in Finland and across Europe, and whether these societies are still willing to stand up for the rights of all – even those they disagree with.”

HRLA will continue to monitor the Räsänen appeal. Its outcome bears directly on cases like those of Lyle Shelton, who has spent seven years in Queensland’s vilification proceedings over a blog post – and who, like Räsänen, won at first instance only to face a successful appeal.