{"id":7143,"date":"2021-05-25T13:38:44","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T13:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adf.uk\/?p=7143"},"modified":"2024-01-18T15:43:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T14:43:57","slug":"the-unstoppable-march-of-state-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adfinternational.org\/en-gb\/commentary\/the-unstoppable-march-of-state-censorship","title":{"rendered":"The unstoppable march of state censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Finland, a long-standing member of parliament and former government minister, Dr P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen, is facing jail time for three counts of \u2018<\/span>hate speech<\/a>\u2019. Her crime was sharing her deeply held beliefs over the past two decades on topics such as marriage, sexual ethics and her Christian faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The criminal charges relate to a 2019 tweet containing a picture of a Bible passage, a church pamphlet she wrote in 2004 on marriage and sexual ethics, and approximately two minutes of conversation extracted from a one-hour discussion on a 2019 radio show, which was broadcast on the Finnish equivalent of the BBC. Each offence carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Writes Paul Coleman in Spiked. Read the rest of the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vaguely worded hate-speech laws can end up criminalising almost any opinion. Paul Coleman is the executive director of ADF International, a human-rights organisation defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. He is the author of Censored: How European Hate Speech Laws are Threatening Freedom of Speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":23570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[737],"tags":[898],"class_list":["post-7143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-uk-en-gb"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe unstoppable march of state censorship - ADF International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/adfinternational.org\/en-gb\/commentary\/the-unstoppable-march-of-state-censorship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The unstoppable march of state censorship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vaguely worded hate-speech laws can end up criminalising almost any opinion. 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