Finnish Christian Democrat MP and former interior minister Päivi Räsänen has been barred from entering the United Kingdom, leaving her unable to appear in person at a religious liberty conference in Northern Ireland where she was due to speak about freedom of speech.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents Räsänen, said on Tuesday that her UK Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) had been cancelled following her March conviction by Finland’s Supreme Court for ‘agitation against a population group’. Her ETA was initially approved in June before being withdrawn in July. She subsequently applied for a full visitor visa and personally appealed to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, but was told she would not receive a decision in time for the conference.
The episode marks the second time in two months that the same travel restriction has prevented Räsänen from travelling through or to Britain. In July, she had to reroute a return journey from the United States to avoid transiting through Heathrow after her ETA was cancelled.
Under UK immigration rules, an ETA must be refused or cancelled when an applicant has been convicted of a criminal offence within the previous 12 months, including an overseas conviction.
Räsänen’s case stems from a seven-year prosecution over her public statements on homosexuality and Christian teaching. In March, Finland’s Supreme Court upheld her acquittal over a 2019 social-media post quoting a Bible verse, but convicted her over passages in a Christian pamphlet on marriage and sexuality. The court imposed 20 day-fines and ordered the unlawful passages removed from the online publication.
The ruling, as well as the lengthy trial process, drew significant international attention and criticism, mostly from Christian and free speech groups, as well as from Donald Trump’s America. The US embassy in Finland called the verdict ‘a troubling ruling for religious freedom and freedom of expression’, warning that it set a dangerous precedent.
ADF CEO Kristen Waggoner said Räsänen had been invited precisely because she had become an internationally recognized advocate for free speech. ‘Freedom-loving nations should welcome voices like hers—not uphold the heavy-handed censorship of other nations,’ she said, urging Mahmood to intervene directly. ‘Free speech is not a crime,’ she wrote in a post on X.
Räsänen, however, was far from the only internationally known conservative figure to be blocked from entering the UK recently. Former Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer extensively used visa powers against right-wing activists and politicians, including Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński, Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek, and US-based activists Joey Mannarino and Valentina Gomez, as they were scheduled to participate in an anti-immigration rally organized by Tommy Robinson in May. Separately, Finnish MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen was also denied entry in July.
Räsänen, Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, and the Luther Foundation Finland have now taken their convictions to the European Court of Human Rights. ADF argues that the case will test whether peaceful religious expression remains protected under Europe’s freedom-of-expression guarantees.
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