Finnish Member of Parliament Paivi Rasanen arrives to attend a court session at the Helsinki District Court in Helsinki, Finland, on Jan. 24, 2022. Antti Aimo-Koivisto/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images
Europeans who face criminal charges for what they said or wrote warned that Europe’s speech laws can silence Americans as well, regardless of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections.
While testifying before the House Judiciary Committee last week, Paivi Rasanen, a member of parliament in Finland, recounted how she has been prosecuted since 2021 for quoting Bible verses to church members and on social media that questioned her church’s participation in a Gay Pride march. Although she was acquitted, first by a local district court and then by an appellate court, prosecutors appealed the decision to Finland’s supreme court, where the case currently sits.
