Dr. Päivi Räsänen is a medical doctor who now has been a Member of the Finnish Parliament since 1995. From 2004 to 2015, Räsänen was the chairwoman of the Finnish Christian Democrats and served for four years as the Minister of the Interior of Finland between 2011-2015. As the Minister of the Interior, Räsänen was responsible for internal security and migration, church affairs at the Ministry of Education and Culture, and matters relating to customs in the Ministry of Finance. Räsänen lives in Riihimäki with her husband, Niilo. They have five children and twelve grandchildren. Räsänen is also a member of Riihimäki City Council, County Council, and a member of the Church Council. She authored several books from a Christian perspective, including on topics of marriage, abortion and euthanasia. Currently, Räsänen serves as a member of the Social Affairs and Health Committee and a deputy member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
In short, Dr. Räsänen is no dummy!!! (to put it mildly). She’s sharp, well-read, perceptive, common sense and a person who cares deeply about others, willing to serve in public office for many years.
It’s now been five years and Dr. Päivi Räsänen is STILL being persecuted by the Finnish government for a TWEET!!!
In her own words….
“What I’ve learned in the five years the Finnish state prosecuted me for my faith,” writes Päivi Räsänen in an article for The Public Discourse. In an age of “wokeism,” Dr. Räsänen’s article and first-hand experience is well worth the read…
:I have been a member of the Finnish Parliament for twenty-nine years. During that time, I have witnessed a dramatic 
change in the value system undergirding our modern society. From the protection of life to the defense of marriage, the changes we are living through are undeniable, with far-reaching implications for us all. And it’s evident that the general atmosphere toward Christianity grows increasingly hostile every day. Only ten years ago, I could not have imagined that I would soon be summoned to my country’s Supreme Court to defend my religious convictions.
“’Has somebody occupied Finland?’ My six-year-old grandson asked me this in June 2019 when he saw a giant rainbow flag, the biggest we had seen to date, flying over our home city of Riihimäki, Finland. At that same time, the majority church of our country, the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, officially published its support of a Helsinki “pride” event, which disappointed and shocked many (including me).
Her social media tweet
Before our very eyes, the church was assuming a position contrary to its own confession that God designed marriage for one man and one woman. If the authority of God’s Word is undermined, the question becomes not only about marriage or gender, but also about the path to salvation and eternal life. Every person, including the LGBT community, has the right to hear the whole truth of God’s Word. While I briefly considered leaving my church, I was convinced that it was better to stay aboard and try to wake up those who had fallen asleep, not jump out of a sinking boat.
This was why I wrote a tweet, in which I directed a question to my church leadership. I wanted to exercise my basic right to free speech to publicly ask how they reconciled their activities with biblical teaching. The main content of my post was a photo of verses 24–27 of Romans Chapter 1, where the Apostle Paul teaches that homosexual relations are sinful. A citizen filed a criminal complaint in response to my tweet, and more complaints quickly followed.
The Result
These complaints resulted in eighteen months of police investigation and thirteen hours of interrogations. As a former government minister, sitting parliamentarian, and grandmother, I found the situation unreal. Just a few years before, I had been in charge of the police as Minister of Interior, and now I was sitting in the police station being interrogated, with the 
Bible on the table in front of me.
The questions were shamelessly about the Bible and its interpretation. I was asked, “What is the message of the book of Romans and its first chapter?” and “What do I mean by the words ‘sin’ and ‘shame’?” A joke spread on social media that Päivi Räsänen was once again meeting for a Bible study at the police station. The police asked if I would agree to delete my writings within two weeks. I said no and reasserted my belief in the Bible’s teachings, no matter the consequences. I will not apologize, I explained, for what the Apostle Paul has stated.
Criminally charged
After the investigation, I was charged criminally for my post about the Bible’s teaching on marriage. A second charge was filed about a booklet called “Male and Female He Created Them,” which I had written for my church in 2004. Bishop Juhana Pohjola also was prosecuted as responsible for publishing the booklet. A third charge was filed about my biblical views presented in a 2019 radio interview. It was at this time that ADF International came alongside me and we began to defend my case.
The possible sentence for the crime of “ethnic agitation,” of which I have been accused, is up to two years imprisonment or a fine. In Finnish law, it falls within the “war crimes and crimes against humanity” section of the criminal code. The “hate speech” law had passed parliament unanimously without any real debate. I was part of parliament at the time, and I can say that no one saw the danger of this ambiguity back then.
Her eyes now wide open and seeing clearly
But now I see it quite clearly. An ambiguous law broadly banning “hate speech” that can imprison someone for speaking about their faith on social media is bad enough. But the greatest danger is the threat of society-wide censorship and the crushing effect on freedom of speech and religion. A judgment against me would open the floodgates to a broad ban on
the public expression of religious views or other beliefs and the threat of modern book burnings.
In the last five years…
In the last five years, I have undergone two trials, first at the District Court and then, following the prosecution’s appeal, at the Court of Appeals, both resulting in unanimous acquittals. The prosecution’s insistence on punishing me for a peaceful expression of my religious beliefs has defied reason, leading to yet another appeal, currently pending before the Supreme Court of Finland.
In the trial at the District Court, the prosecutor at first stated that the trial would not be an inquisition concerning the Bible. But then she surprisingly targeted the core doctrine of Christianity: the teachings of the Gospel. She claimed that my views amounted to a doctrine that she summarized as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” This doctrine she regarded as insulting and defaming because, according to her, you cannot distinguish between the… read more (and well worth it!)
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