Päivi Räsänen—the Finnish parliamentarian convicted of “hate speech” earlier this year by Finland’s Supreme Court for expressing her Biblical beliefs in a church pamphlet about marriage and sexual ethics —has been banned from traveling through London’s Heathrow Airport.
The former Finnish Minister of the Interior and physician said that her electronic travel authorization (ETA) for the U.K. has been revoked after initially being approved. ETA’s are required for travelers without a Visa to pass through U.K. border control.
“The Supreme Court’s closely divided ruling has had unexpected consequences,” Räsänen said. “In addition to restricting freedom of expression, it has also created restrictions and difficulties related to travel and participation in meetings and conferences.
“My greatest concern is that this decision has left many people with uncertainty, confusion and fear about the consequences of exercising their freedom of speech and religion in a peaceful manner, and about where the line lies between lawful and prohibited speech.”
In a 3-2 decision, the Finnish high court on March 26 found Räsänen guilty of “hate speech.” At the same time, the court unanimously acquitted her on a charge stemming from tweeting a Bible verse in 2019.
ADF International has been defending Räsänen, who was first charged with “agitation against a minority group” in April 2021. She was investigated in 2019, after she tweeted a Bible verse that spoke against her church denomination’s endorsement of an LGBTQ event. She was also charged under the section of the Finnish criminal code titled “war crimes and crimes against humanity” for her statements on marriage and sexuality in a live radio debate, and for her views published in a 2004 church booklet.
Two lower courts had acquitted her on all the charges, but the Supreme Court found Räsänen and co-defendant Juhana Pohjola, a Lutheran bishop who published the pamphlet, guilty of 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.”
Pohjola has also been denied the travel authorization.
Räsänen announced in May that she is appealing her criminal conviction to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The appeal to the ECHR stands as the last legal opportunity for her conviction to be overturned and could serve as a critical turning point for free speech rights in Finland and Europe.
Franklin Graham, in a Facebook post on Wednesday, called on Christians to continue praying for Räsänen—a wife, mother of five and grandmother of 12—who has served in the Finnish Parliament since 1995.
“It’s hard to believe that Finnish Member of Parliament and Christian Päivi Räsänen has been banned from flying through London’s Heathrow Airport simply for her belief on Biblical sexuality,” Graham wrote. “She has been persecuted for many years in her home country and accused of ‘hate speech’ simply for quoting what the Bible says about homosexual sin in Romans 1:24-27. Let’s pray for Päivi as she stands boldly on God’s Word and refuses to back down. God bless her.”
Christian author Rod Dreher, who attended a conference in California recently with Räsänen, criticized the U.K.’s actions: “The progressive bureaucratic order in European countries would rather attack faithful Christians as Enemies Of Society than deal with the actual problems they have.”
In his Facebook post, Graham quoted a warning by Dreher: “We can expect more of this. It’s a Finnish Lutheran lawmaker and grandmother today; it could easily be you tomorrow.”
In an interview with Decision last year at BGEA’s European Congress on Evangelism in Berlin, Räsänen said that during each of the three police interrogations she was pressured to renounce her Biblical beliefs about marriage and human sexuality.
“Each time the police gave me the possibility to renounce my texts and speeches,” she said. “And I said that, ‘I will not renounce even [with] what the consequences will be, because these are not only my opinions. These are what God has spoken in His Word, and I will not apologize.’”
Räsänen said that during her 13 hours of police interrogation she sometimes felt like she was leading a Bible study. “I had a Bible on the table and the police asked me to explain each passage very thoroughly from Genesis, the Book of Romans and also others about human sexuality and the same-sex couples and so on,” she recalled.
Räsänen said she has been strengthened in her faith after receiving messages from people who have professed faith in Christ after hearing her testimony through media reports. The Book of Acts, she said, has challenged and inspired her since she was a teenager.
“If we read Acts, we can see that how through many hardships, and even persecutions and calamities, the apostles get opportunities to preach the Gospel again, and again, and again,” she said. “But it’s the way that God [works]. So, we don’t have to be afraid of contradictions, or even persecutions or criticism against us as it is in Western countries.”
