Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood would be well-advised to overturn the cancellation of Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen’s invitation to speak in the UK on freedom of speech.
The Christian politician was due to give an address in person this week at a ‘Faith in the Public Square’ conference in Northern Ireland.
But following her criminal conviction for ‘hate speech’ by Finland’s Supreme Court in March for expressing her Christian beliefs on marriage and human sexuality in a 2004 booklet written for her church, Räsänen was informed in July that her Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to the UK had been cancelled. This was despite her application initially being approved in June.
The Christian Institute (CI) reported in July that Members of Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly had called for Räsänen – Finland’s former Interior Minister, equivalent of Home Secretary – to be barred from speaking at Stormont.
CI said: “Following reports that Päivi Räsänen was invited to talk at a ‘Faith in the Public Square’ event in Stormont, associated with the Bangor Worldwide Missionary Convention, Naomi Long, the Alliance Party leader, wrote that Räsänen would ‘bring the Assembly into disrepute’ by being there, and called for her to be deplatformed.”
With the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Räsänen plans to appeal her conviction in Finland at the European Court of Human Rights.
ADF reported on August 18th:
Räsänen will be forced to speak at the event virtually on Wednesday and Friday, unless she is granted entry to the country. The Finnish MP and ADF are now calling on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to make a last-minute intervention to allow Räsänen to attend in person on Friday.
Räsänen said:
It is shocking that the UK has blocked me, a democratically elected politician in an allied European state, from entering the country.
I was convicted of ‘hate speech’ in Finland for peacefully expressing my Christian views. This was an egregious case of state censorship, noted with concern by observers around the world, including the US State Department and the US Religious Liberty Commission.
Even though this unjust conviction is currently on appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, the UK has likely refused me travel authorisation on this basis. In doing so, the UK is punishing me for exercising my fundamental human rights.
I call on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to urgently intervene to allow me to enter the UK to speak at this event. There is still time for this censorship to be reversed.
ADF reported the US State Department’s comment on Räsänen’s criminal prosecution, prior to her conviction in March:
In a democracy, no one should face trial for peacefully sharing their beliefs. The case against Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen, which accuses her of hate speech for simply posting a Bible verse, is baseless, as two courts have unanimously found.
Following her conviction, the US Embassy in Finland said:
A troubling ruling for religious freedom and freedom of expression: Finland’s Supreme Court dismissed the charge over MP Päivi Räsänen’s 2019 Bible-verse social-media post, but convicted her over separate passages in a Christian pamphlet and imposed a fine. Whatever one thinks of the underlying views, the imposition of criminal liability for nonviolent religious expression sets a troubling precedent for religious freedom and freedom of expression.
Mahmood should not forget US Vice President JD Vance’s challenge to former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the Oval Office in 2025 about the “infringements on free speech” in the UK.
If she wants to help new Prime Minister Andy Burnham rescue Britain’s dire reputation over free speech in the eyes of the US administration, she should take a speedy decision to let Räsänen travel to the UK in time for her speech tomorrow, Friday August 21st.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
Discussion
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Can you imagine if that was a person from a certain other religion! There would be a huge outpouring on the streets!
I think this is Christian-aphobia! is there’s such a word?
As a devout Muslim what are Shabana Mahmood’s thoughts on gay marriage ?.
Although I despise Hasan Piker his ban from entering the UK was atrocious.
Let people speak it is a simple way of knowing exactly what they are thinking.
Apparently, according to The Government, we still have free speech.
Yes, but speech comes from thought, and we know they’re cracking down on free thought.
As in the individual who was visited by the police in order to “ check your thinking “.
Disgraceful. If she were expressing the same views as a Muslim, would she be treated the same way? Except then she’d probably be calling for all gay people to be stoned to death, or something equally barbaric.
A very big mistake by your gov’t. Meanwhile complete strangers in rubber dinghy’s arrive illegally into your country weekly. What a fascinating country you are UK.
Talking about the fascination of the horrible, we in the UK are unable to keep up with the mass shootings that are a fact of life in the USA. We’ll take our own inventory and you take yours.
Thank you for your comment, which is well overdue.
There is not really a “you” in the same way that you may well not associate yourself with a lot of what happens in your country. This is an interesting piece: Ann Coulter
Specifically this column: WHO’S IN WORSE SHAPE, EUROPE OR THE U.S.? – Ann Coulter
Do you agree with her?
What an excellent article.
Yes she writes well
I think she underestimates the scale of the problem in Europe though because you need to look at who babies are being born to now not overall population
It is mind-boggling to realize that in 1979 when records began, only about 1200 foreigners applied for asylum in the UK.
ONE YEAR… For the whole country… 1200 asylum seekers…
And yet now that is the number of Hostile Alien Third World Men of Military Age swarming across the Channel in ONE DAY… like a MUSLIM ARMY.
And while Communist Pakistani Muslim Mahmood shows her outrageous abuse of political power to deny entry to ONE FINNISH CHRISTIAN, merely for defending one of the most basic beliefs of both Christianity AND ISLAM, Mahmood is also vowing to FORCE small English villages of only a few hundred people to accept ONE ENTIRE 1979 YEAR’S SUPPLY OF FAKE ASYLUM SEEKERS!!!
Shabana Mahmood doubles down on PM’s pledge to send more asylum seekers to middle-class areas
The fact that Burnham chose her as one of the worst possible candidates shows that someone else behind the scenes is really in charge.
Agenda 2030. Utopia. The road to hell. Count the things it has brought us. I’ll start with DEI. Broken borders. A judiciary, formerly the envy of the world, that has become unrecognisable. Two-tier policing. Net Zero misery. Dependence on the Free Speech Union to defend our rights. And on it goes. All Utopian ambitions end in disaster – we must abandon UN Agenda 2030 / 50 now and revert to our own governance.
Off topic but very relevant.
in which other country where political class (ie the Uniparty and friends) claim to be first world would the internet be as bad as in the Capital City. Also on major rail lines, motorways and the tube.
In County Durham I was told the whole area was rubbish for the internet whether from wired services or G4/5.
We know the cause. It was Gordon Brown’s raid on mobile phone providers. The cost was huge. They could only spend the money once so it went to major population centres.
In sparsely populated places in the USA, Australia and Scandinavia this is not a problem.
Her presence would ‘bring the Assembly into disrepute’?
They think they are held in high repute, do they?
Of course it would be the alliance party in NI who object to Räsänen speaking. They only want those with approved views to have a voice
Land Whale Naomi Long’s Alliance Party seems to be just another front for Catholic Sinn Fein & the IRA.
Doubtless this decision is fully supported by Rowan Williams, who is obviously conflicted about defending his own faith. Banning this woman from speaking about Christianity in the UK is grotesque.
I think this the wildest ban yet. Convicted for offending a protected minority 22 years ago, her views as I understand it not dissimilar to a former LibDem leader.
Banning Tarczyński was controversial enough, but this is on another level entirely.
I’m not a Christian, I don’t agree with her views, but they are views held by many others.
All orthodox Christians share exactly the same views including the Church of England, at least as official doctrine. The head of the C of E is King Charles who should therefore be thrown out of the country.
However, when you have the C of E persecuting Dr Bernard Randall for preaching the Christian gospel despite its official doctrine, you might as well give up. I despair.
Including Muslims. I wonder how many mental somersaults the smoothbrains have performed to justify that as “ok” somehow?
All she has to do is dress up as a man, and come across the Channel in a rubber dinghy. She’ll be welcomed with open arms, given free accommodation, a pre-paid SIM card, and a useful leaflet about not raping children.
Can we all do that. It might save me a lot of money.