LONDON — A Finnish Christian parliamentarian has been barred from entering the United Kingdom following her conviction by Finland’s Supreme Court for calling homosexuality a “sexual deviation” and an “aberration.”
In July, the U.K. government informed Päivi Räsänen, a long-serving Christian Democrat politician, that her Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) had been denied, after initially approving it in June.
Räsänen had been due to travel to Northern Ireland to address a conference on religious freedom and free speech on Wednesday and Friday this week, but she will now have to contribute virtually.
Her ban from entry into Northern Ireland follows the U.K. government’s refusal to allow a number of other high-profile figures to visit the country over the past year, often on grounds of what it deems to be “hate speech.”
After her ETA was canceled, Räsänen applied for a full visa and wrote to the U.K.’s home secretary personally to ask that it be granted ahead of the conference, but she did not receive a reply and was told not to expect a response before the event.
Räsänen’s blocked entry to the U.K. comes after Finland’s Supreme Court convicted her in March 2026 for expressing her Christian beliefs on marriage
