Paivi Rasanen is questioned by media outside the courts. Photo: ADF International Following the news that the Finnish state prosecutor will appeal against the second unanimous court decision which exonerated an MP of “hate speech” allegations for sharing faith-based beliefs, an Irish lawyer has said that it shows a “liberal, European” country is capable of “targeting and prosecuting” people over widely-held Christian beliefs.
Former MP Päivi Räsänen was cleared on November 14 by the Helsinki Court of Appeals of hate speech charges she faced for expressing the Christian view that marriage is only between a man and a woman.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, Lorcan Price of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said that the ongoing state prosecution of Ms Rasanen should serve as a warning to Ireland as it considers hate speech legislation.
“If the ideological view in the prosecution office is that they want to get somebody, they’ll get them, and they’ll certainly commence a prosecution. So even if you are hopefully acquitted and found not guilty at an early stage, all of this takes time, money, inconvenience and stress from the individual citizen who finds themselves at the receiving end of a criminal prosecution and it’s no small thing,” Mr Price said.
“The tone from the [Irish] Government now is that Ireland has a major hate speech problem and it’s going to be something that they prioritise in terms of policing in the future.
“We can expect to see people arrested, investigated, charged, prosecuted for speech-related offences. For possession of controversial material and so on as the emphasis shifts towards policing this,” he warned.
While a Finnish court’s ruling is not binding on Irish courts, if the Finnish supreme court hears the case, it could prove “influential” in other jurisdictions, Mr Price said.
“It dangerously shows that you have a liberal, European country that’s prepared to target and prosecute a publicly known Christian figure in that country for holding a belief that the vast majority of Christian denominations formally hold.
“If that’s the case in Finland, why not in Denmark or the Netherlands or, indeed, in Ireland?”