UK Bans Finnish MP From Airport Transit Over Bible-Quoting “Hate Speech” Conviction
"Once they label you a hater, they will never stop seeking to punish you."
“Hate speech” laws just stopped Päivi Räsänen from transiting through Heathrow.
Christian Concern’s head of policy, Tim Dieppe, confirmed the news on X.
The UK government banned “Räsänen from even setting foot in Heathrow Airport because she has a conviction for quoting the Bible in Finland!”
Breaking the news, Rod Dreher said that Räsänen was on her way to a July Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF) summit.
She found out mid-flight and was told that the UK wouldn’t allow her to “go through London’s Heathrow airport on the flight back.”
This was, Dreher exclaimed, “because she’s a convicted hate criminal!”
The UK, he added, “determined that her presence in Britain, even simply making a connecting flight in the airport, is unwelcome.”
Stepping back for a second to process the significance of the precedent, Dreher wrote,
“Someone as innocent and gentle as this Finnish granny has been forbidden by the British government even for setting foot in their international airport (which isn’t technically UK territory).”
Noting that the ban only confirmed his suspicions, Dreher said it justified his decision to delay settling in the country.
“If I were deported from the UK over my writing, I could never return. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”
The Finnish MP and grandmother is currently appealing an LGBTQ+ lawfare conviction for quoting Romans 1:24-2 in 2019.
Räsänen’s conviction also relates to a pamphlet published in 2004, a decade before Finland legislated to redefine marriage. (Read more here)
Responding to the decision, Alliance Defending Freedom’s Senior Counsel Sean Nelson wrote on X, “Once they label you a hater, they will never stop seeking to punish you. This madness must be stopped. God bless, Päivi Räsänen.”
Co-chair for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, slammed the ban as “ridiculous,” adding, “The only thing more outlandish than her being convicted for hate speech is the UK not allowing her to transit through Heathrow.”
Päivi Räsänen, Brownback declared, “continues to suffer from this gross miscarriage of justice.”
As Lifesite reported, the travel ban is the consequence of Räsänen being “retroactively convicted for defending the biblical position on marriage because LGBT activists and their judicial allies relentlessly pursued her prosecution.”
This is despite her being acquitted twice!
Officially being labelled a “hate criminal”, Lifesite’s Jonathon Van Meran said, “the goal of the LGBT activists who persecuted her.”
The consequences of which “are now coming to fruition.”
Citing Dreher, Meran added that Räsänen, a sitting member of the Finnish parliament, is the canary in the coal mine.
“The progressive bureaucratic order in European countries would rather attack faithful Christians as enemies of society,” Dreher observed, “than deal with the actual problems they have.”
“We can expect more of this. It’s a Finnish Lutheran lawmaker and grandmother today; it could easily be you tomorrow.”
The message is clear: If you post a Bible verse in Finland, then get painted by an activist class cashed up and gunning for you, travel restrictions will be applied to any said “hate speech” conviction.
Päivi Räsänen isn’t a criminal.
LGBTQ+ lawfare is.
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