Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen’s second trial at the Helsinki Court of Appeal has ended, in what a senior human rights advocate has called a ‘canary in the coalmine’ example of how hate speech laws can undermine democracy.
Räsänen, a former minister of the interior and medical doctor, had used social media to question her church denomination’s official sponsorship of the Helsinki LGBTQ Pride Event in 2019.
What followed was a police investigation that also uncovered a pamphlet she had co-authored in 2004 for her church, called ‘As Man and Woman He Created Them’.
