Imagine facing your nation’s Supreme Court for the “crime” of sharing a Bible verse. On October 30, that’s the reality for Päivi Räsänen, a Finnish grandmother, medical doctor, and parliamentarian. Her soon-to-be seven-year ordeal began in 2019, when she questioned her church’s support for Helsinki Pride and posted a Bible verse on X. That single tweet triggered 13 hours of police interrogation, two full trials, and now a third prosecution under Finland’s “hate speech” law.
Räsänen’s case might sound like an exclusively European story — but it also serves as a warning about the growing threat of censorship coming from the EU. While someone living outside of Europe might assume they are exempt from the troubling wave of censorship spreading across the continent, that assumption is dangerously mistaken.
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