A Finnish member of parliament has been blocked from entering the UK where she was due to give a talk in person on freedom of speech at a religious freedom conference. Päivi Räsänen had been convicted for hate speech by the Finnish Supreme Court in March for expressing her Christian beliefs on marriage and sexuality in a 2004 church booklet.
Räsänen, who is a member of the Finnish Parliament’s “Friends of the United Kingdom” group, was due to give a talk in person on freedom of speech, at a religious freedom conference. In July, however, she was informed that her Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to the UK had been cancelled, despite her application initially being approved in June.
