Finland’s Prosecutor General Continues Battle Against Religious Freedom

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

Last week we reported that on March 30, a court in Finland had unanimously dismissed all charges in the trial of two prominent Christians. Member of Parliament and medical doctor Paivi Rasanen and Bishop-Elect and Dean Juhana Pohjola had been charged with hate crimes simply for expressing their Christian beliefs on fundamental moral issues.
“It is not for the district court to interpret biblical concepts,” the court said, and the prosecution was ordered to pay more than 60,000 Euro in legal costs.
The decision brought a sigh of relief from the defendants. However, the prosecution was given seven days to appeal, and on April 7, Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen announced her intention to do so.
“This case has been hanging over me and my family for almost three years,” Dr. Rasanen said. “After my full exoneration in court, I am dismayed that the prosecutor will not let this campaign against me drop.”
“Once again,” she continued, “I am prepared to defend freedom of speech and religion not just for me, but for everyone. I am grateful for all those who have stood by me during this ordeal and ask for their continued support.”
The court’s reasoning had sent a blunt message. The purpose of Dr. Rasanen’s writings was to “defend the concept of family and marriage between a man and a woman,” it said, adding that even if some people find statements offensive, “there must be an overriding social reason for interfering with and restricting freedom of expression.”
Undoubtedly, the sting of the court’s reprimand prompted Prosecutor Toiviainen to find the decision “offensive.” Indeed, it also hurt her feelings — after all, the sharp remonstrance by the court demanded that she reimburse the costs of the faithful Christians she had so publicly and ruthlessly attacked.
To date, the case has received scant coverage in the U.S., save for some helpful Christian sites. With Toiviainen’s decision, however, the case will likely attract more attention. It has now taken on the status of a precedent-setting symbolic confrontation. The “lifestyles” of sexual deviants have been declared legal for years in the West. Must they now be protected from public criticism as well?
Toiviainen thinks so, and her prosecution plods on.
On the Left — not only in Finland but the world over — feelings, not reason, rule. For them, the fact that those celebrating sexual grotesqueries feel “offended” provides a more than sufficient demand for what the court calls “interfering with and restricting freedom of expression.”
At the core of their campaign is the Prime Mandate of the Culture of Death. They insist that it is so compelling that it is self-evident:
The family must be destroyed.
And nothing should stand in the way of this “overriding social reason,” especially if that impediment is based on religious grounds, which should be embraced only in private, if they are to be permitted at all.
Those who defy this diktat deserve to be harassed, canceled, fired, flunked, expelled, defunded, and more. We have learned from recent experience how the children of the sexual revolution love to throw their weight around. And they often rely on the Left’s “Old Faithful,” the policy of projection: Always accuse the enemy of your own sins.
So homosexuals complain about being bullied as they browbeat assorted employers, university deans, and Jesuits into advocating their “cause.” Masters of reverse racism ignore a massive crime wave and send the FBI to harass “white supremacists” who must be persecuted in every zip code. School unions and their school board allies invite the Feds to prosecute families who demand to know what swill their children are getting in the name of “education.”
And sure enough, two years ago this month, Prosecutor General Toiviainen complained to Finland’s Lannen Media that it was she who was being intimidated. She had received a flood of complaints after she began the investigation into Rasanen and Pohjola, she said, but “they have not affected her decision-making.”
And her “decision”? In the cause of fighting “hate speech,” she seeks not only to censor, but to punish.
Persuasion is not the preferred method of the Left. Power is.

Intimidation As Public Policy

“Already, this three-year process with all the investigations and court sessions has in practice narrowed the freedom of speech by creating self-censorship,” Rasanen said. “People are afraid of the possible consequences when expressing their faith and their conviction in public.”
Admittedly, given their influence in the secular culture, oversexed LGBT fanatics can “punch above their weight,” to use Obama’s hackneyed phrase, when it comes to terrorizing their critics. However, since the advent of the China Virus, the power politics of intimidation has entered a new phase, surging to the fore worldwide.
In February 2020, China scholar Steven Mosher revealed in the New York Post how the evidence pointed to the origins of the virus in the Wuhan lab operated by the military division of China’s Communist Party. America’s state media censored the article, and Big Tech blocked even the mention of the possibility. Meanwhile, Communist China used its massive influence network in the United States to manipulate, and then to resonate, the Party Line.
Two years later, Mosher’s revelation was quietly confirmed by the usual suspects.
But facts didn’t matter in the intimidation project. Object to Dr. Fauci’s role in shutting down America and you were a “conspiracy theorist.” Point to Fauci’s support of the “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — sending them millions in U.S. taxpayer funding, no less — and you’re “denying the science.” Point to the massive damage that the lockdowns caused in every dimension of America life and “you don’t want to keep us safe.”

The Cost Of Being Christian

Perhaps the most lasting damage came with the acquiescence of Catholic bishops in the government-mandated lockouts from the sacraments. Not one prelate resisted — indeed, did even one risk voicing his opposition publicly?
The spiritual damage of that abdication was profound, but the clear and present public danger remains as well. The precedent has now been proclaimed and universally accepted by America’s Catholic hierarchy: The government has the power to create a crisis and to use it as a pretext to close down the sacraments.
And Catholics around the world are now liable to the same punishment.
We note that the number of prelates who have publicly condemned the persecution of Catholics in China can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And while Pope Francis refuses to receive China’s Cardinal Zen, we see Cardinal Parolin ready to renew for another two years the Vatican’s secret agreement with the Chinese Communist Party.
If another country proclaims an “overriding social reason for interfering with and restricting freedom of religion” and launches a massive repression of the right of Catholics to practice their faith, will another cardinal do another secret agreement to seal the deal?
Last month, the Tenth World Happiness Report of The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network announced that Finland had been found to be the happiest country in the world for the fifth year in a row.
If Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen keeps her show trial on the road, a lot of unhappy Christians in Finland might change that.