Päivi Räsänen and the Failure of Hate Speech Laws

On March 26, the Supreme Court of Finland handed down its verdict in the case of Päivi Räsänen, a doctor, grandmother, and long-serving member of the Finnish parliament. The court found her guilty of “insult” for a church pamphlet she wrote in 2004, in which she expressed her views on sexual morality. On the basis of the decades-old pamphlet, she has been criminally convicted for “making available to the public a text that insults a group.”