Finnish MP on trial for tweeting a Bible verse to give free speech testimony at Congress

Mrs Räsänen, 66, was charged with three counts of agitation against a minority group for a 2019 tweet quoting Roman 1:24-27 and questioning Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland’s sponsorship of an LGBT pride event.

Finnish hate speech provisions render the particular charge a criminal offence.

She has gone onto become an outspoken critic of free speech limits and will now appear before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington as part of a hearing on foreign censorship, which will begin at the Rayburn House Office Building.

The hearing, titled ‘Europe’s Threat to Speech and Innovation: Part II’, is set to delve into whether speech laws in the European Union are hindering innovation and democratic expression in the United States.

The Supreme Court of Finland hears arguments in the case in October 2025.

Lower courts twice acquitted both Mrs Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop, Juhana Pohjola, who published a pamphlet she wrote in 2004 titled ‘Male and Female He Created Them’.

Mrs Räsänen’s charges were based on three separate instances of expression - the tweet, the pamphlet and remarks during a radio interview.

Finland’s former interior minister refused to retract the statements, saying she acted out of her religious convictions.

“I stand here not only to defend my own right to speak freely, but to defend the freedom of every person to express deeply held beliefs without fear of punishment,” she told reporters before her trial.

Her legal team argues that punishment for citing the Bible is a violation of both Finnish constitutional rights and international human rights law.

Speaking to GB News in November, Mrs Räsänen likened her trial to a punishment of heresy.

“I was sitting in a police station”, she recalled.

“I had the Bible on the table and the police were asking what I meant by the words ‘sin’ and ‘shame’.”

After two acquittals in the lower courts, the prosecution pressed ahead in their attempts to secure a conviction by taking the case to the highest court in the land.

“At the least, it is ideologically motivated, then also politically”, she explained.

“The prosecutors who have been in court accusing me of hate speech have very publicly expressed this before in their views.

“Finnish society is divided. We have forces, for example, LGBT advocates that are very strongly demanding limitations to freedom of speech and for Christians.

“I think they have influence on the prosecution.”

If convicted, Mrs Räsänen could be served with financial penalties and potential content censorship.