https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/04/its-time-the-west-admitted-free-speech-is-dead/
The Finnish police concluded that no crime had been committed, but the prosecutor-general decided to charge her anyway. In 2022, Räsänen went to court: three judges, no jury, no witnesses and not even a victim to say they took offence. The judges decided in Räsänen’s favour; the prosecutor, who won’t take no for an answer, simply brought the case back via appeal. The second trial wrapped up last week, and if Räsänen is found guilty, she could face jail.
According to Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International, a religious advocacy group that threw its weight behind Räsänen, the prosecutor opened by insisting that this case is not about theology: you can quote the Bible as much as you like, the issue is how you interpret it, and Räsänen had done so in such a way that caused harm.
The classic liberal take is that we are inherently tolerant, that if we scrape away old ideas and customs, we’ll become a society that is free and peaceful. But the evidence of history and what is happening abroad in, say, Azerbaijan or Ukraine, suggests that human beings are very intolerant of each other – and it’s good culture and strong institutions, cultivated over centuries, that keep us from each other’s throats.
Today, the culture is decaying and institutions are being captured, and the assumptions upon which a delicate liberal order rested are gradually being forgotten. I was taught that I had no right to be protected from difficult ideas, that it was my responsibility to interrogate and challenge them.
By contrast, the Finnish prosecution reportedly said of one of Räsänen’s arguments: “The point isn’t whether it is true or not but that it is insulting.” How dumb, depressing and scary.
