{"id":5676,"date":"2024-01-17T19:23:51","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T19:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/17\/finnish-state-prosecutor-to-appeal-christian-politicians-not-guilty-verdict\/"},"modified":"2024-01-17T19:23:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T19:23:51","slug":"finnish-state-prosecutor-to-appeal-christian-politicians-not-guilty-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/17\/finnish-state-prosecutor-to-appeal-christian-politicians-not-guilty-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"Finnish state prosecutor to appeal Christian politician&#8217;s &#8216;not guilty&#8217; verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<header>\n<\/header>\n<figure class=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"imgPhoto  full\" layout=\"responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/christiantoday-4cf9.kxcdn.com\/en\/full\/82840\/pivi-rsnen.png?w=760&amp;h=544&amp;l=49&amp;t=43\" height=\"544\" width=\"760\"\/><figcaption class=\"caption\"> P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Alliance Defending Freedom)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A protracted court battle is not over for a Finnish MP and\u00a0bishop after the country&#8217;s state prosecutor announced it would appeal a recent &#8216;not guilty&#8217; verdict.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Charges were brought against P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen, former Minister of the Interior, and Bishop Juhana Pohjola after they shared their Christian beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a 2004 pamphlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>R\u00e4s\u00e4nen faced further charges relating to a\u00a02019 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PaiviRasanen\/status\/1140693636176384011\">tweet<\/a>\u00a0and comments she made in a radio discussion the same year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They stood trial in 2022 and were found not guilty but were\u00a0forced to stand trial again last year after the state prosecutor appealed the original verdict.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They were cleared of all &#8216;hate speech&#8217; charges for the second time by the Helsinki Court of Appeals last November.<\/p>\n<p>In its ruling handed down on 14 November 2023, the court stated that it &#8220;has no reason, on the basis of the evidence received at the main hearing, to assess the case in any respect differently from the District Court.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court must now decide whether it will hear the case.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the latest development,\u00a0R\u00e4s\u00e4nen said she was prepared to fight to the end.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After my full exoneration in two courts, I&#8217;m not afraid of a hearing before the Supreme Court,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even though I am fully aware that every trial carries risks, an acquittal from the Supreme Court would set an even stronger positive precedent for everyone&#8217;s right to free speech and religion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And if the Court decided to overturn the lower courts&#8217; acquittals, I am ready to defend freedom of speech and religion as far as the European Court of Human rights, if necessary.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Paul Coleman, Executive Director of the Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF), which is supporting R\u00e4s\u00e4nen&#8217;s legal defence, expressed alarm at the state prosecutor&#8217;s decision to continue pursuing\u00a0the case.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The state&#8217;s insistence on continuing this prosecution despite such a clear and unanimous ruling by both the Helsinki District Court and Court of Appeal is alarming,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dragging people through the courts for years, subjecting them to hour-long police interrogations, and wasting taxpayer money in order to police people&#8217;s deeply held beliefs has no place in a democratic society.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As is so often the case in &#8216;hate speech&#8217; trials, the process has become of the punishment.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script>\n            window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n                FB.init({\n                    appId      : '105496396833914',\n                    status     : true,\n                    xfbml      : true,\n                    version    : 'v2.8'\n                });\n            };\n            (function(d, s, id) {\n                var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n                if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n                js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n                js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n                fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n            }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n            var socialGetter = (function() {\n                function injectScript(url) {\n                    var script = document.createElement('script');\n                    script.async = true;\n                    script.src   = url;\n                    document.body.appendChild(script);\n                }\n                return {\n                    getFacebookCount: function(url, callbackName) {\n                        injectScript('https:\/\/graph.facebook.com\/?id=' + url + '&callback=' + callbackName);\n                    },\n                    getTwitterCount: function(url, callbackName) {\n                        \/*injectScript('https:\/\/cdn.api.twitter.com\/1\/urls\/count.json?url=\"+ url + \"&callback=' + callbackName);*\/\n                    },\n                    getPinterestCount: function(url, callbackName) {\n                        injectScript('https:\/\/api.pinterest.com\/v1\/urls\/count.json?url=\" + url + \"&callback=' + callbackName);\n                    }\n                };\n            })();\n            function twitterCallback(result) {\n                document.getElementsByClassName(\"tw_share_count\").textContent=result.count;\n            }\n            function facebookCallback(result) {\n                document.getElementsByClassName(\"fb_share_count\").textContent=result.shares;\n            }\n            function pinterestCallback(result) {\n                document.getElementsByClassName(\"pt_share_count\").textContent=result.count;\n            }\n        <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christiantoday.com\/article\/finnish.state.prosecutor.to.appeal.christian.politicians.not.guilty.verdict\/141260.htm\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen(Photo: Alliance Defending Freedom) A protracted court battle is not over for a Finnish MP and\u00a0bishop after the country&#8217;s state prosecutor announced it would appeal a recent &#8216;not guilty&#8217; verdict.\u00a0 Charges were brought against P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen, former Minister of the Interior, and Bishop Juhana Pohjola after they shared their Christian beliefs on marriage and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}