Photo: Helsinki Times A court in Finland has announced the date of a hearing to determine whether a former government minister should be jailed after tweeting a Bible verse.
The Helsinki District Court said that the case involving Päivi Räsänen, a physician and mother of five, will be heard on January 24, 2022.
According to ADF International, a Christian legal group that is supporting her, Ms Räsänen could be given a two-year prison sentence or a fine for the tweet, after the Finnish Prosecutor General filed criminal charges against her on April 29.
Ms Räsänen said: “I await the court proceedings with a calm mind, confident that Finland will respect the freedom of expression and religion enshrined in fundamental rights and international conventions.
“I will not back down from my conviction based on the Bible and I am ready to defend freedom of expression and religion in all necessary courts.
“I cannot accept that voicing religious beliefs could mean imprisonment. I will defend my right to confess my faith, so that no one else would be deprived of their right to freedom of religion and speech.”
The Prosecutor General charged Ms Räsänen, who served as Finland’s interior minister from 2011 to 2015, with incitement against a minority group, arguing that her statements were “likely to cause intolerance, contempt, and hatred towards homosexuals”.
The 61-year-old MP, who was chairwoman of the Christian Democrats party from 2004 to 2015, is an active member of the Finnish Lutheran Church. But she questioned her Church’s sponsorship of an LGBT pride event in 2019.
On June 17, 2019, she asked in a Twitter post how the sponsorship was compatible with the Bible, linking to a photograph of a biblical passage, Romans 1:24-27, on Instagram. She also posted the text and image on Facebook.
“The purpose [of] my tweet was in no way to insult sexual minorities. My criticism was aimed at the leadership of the Church,” she told the journal First Things last year.