Finnish parliamentarian Paivi Rassenen has reportedly been refused an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA), the permit he needs to travel to the UK.
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As CBN News previously reported, Rassenen said the British government canceled the ETA after initially approving it. The supposedly shocking move came after Finland’s Supreme Court upheld Lehsenen’s conviction for “producing and continuing to publish documents insulting groups” as a result of hate speech charges.
The politician and doctor was acquitted of other charges related to tweets defending traditional marriage, but her guilty verdict was based on a pamphlet she wrote detailing a Biblical view of marriage.
Rassenen said she applied for an ETA and initially received a positive response in June, but things quickly changed.
“Then, just two days before I was due to travel, I received an email from the British government saying that my application had been canceled because of what I had said about my conviction,” she told CBN News, noting that she needed to disclose her conviction when applying.
Rassenen is scheduled to speak at a global missionary event on freedom of speech and religion in Northern Ireland next month, but said he did not know for now how he would get there. She can apply for a visa and, if approved, will be allowed to enter the country.
“I’m going to the immigration center here in Finland to submit my fingerprints and try to get a visa,” she said. “It’s a little difficult and expensive, but I don’t know if it’s possible. I think they’ll tell me in three weeks if it’s available.”
Ironically, Lehsenen has visited the UK many times as a member of the Finnish parliament and as a former interior minister.
“So I find it very, very strange that they don’t want me there,” she said.
Faith leader Bishop Juhana Pohoyola, who was convicted along with Rasenen in the same pamphlet, reportedly faced the same problem when trying to travel to Australia.
Regarding the general battle Rehsenen is facing, she told CBN News that seven years of trials and turmoil have ensued.
“It started with a Bible tweet where I took a picture of a Bible, and now I’ve been convicted of publishing and writing this pamphlet, this booklet ‘Male and Woman He Created,'” she said. “I was convicted last March. Previously, I had been acquitted on all charges by two courts, the District Court and the Court of Appeals, but now the Supreme Court has decided to convict me by a narrow 3-2 vote.”
Rather than bemoaning his own situation, this politician is concerned about the broader implications.
“This really affects freedom of speech and freedom of religion here in Finland,” she said. “And I am particularly concerned about the many Christians who are now afraid, because they are writing very similar views, the views of the Bible that I am writing about in this booklet, and they are afraid that they will fall into a similar process in the future.”
Rassenen has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights and hopes the Supreme Court’s decision will be overturned.
“I hope for a good outcome,” she said.
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