As a religious minority who have historically held unpopular beliefs, Jews have benefited from freedom of speech and religion, and can’t afford to take them for granted. In Britain, traditional protections on freedom of speech have been gradually eroded, and there have been instances of police showing up at people’s houses to investigate offensive social-media posts. Here in America, there is much talk of fighting online disinformation and concern about so-called “hate speech,” with little corresponding worry about preserving the First Amendment. The story of the Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen should thus serve as a cautionary tale of what can happen when the state uses intolerant means to enforce supposedly tolerant attitudes:

In 2021, Räsänen was charged on three counts of incitement against a minority group for stating long-held Christian beliefs about homosexuality.

These complaints resulted in eighteen months of police investigation and thirteen hours of interrogations. . . . I was sitting in the police station being interrogated, with the Bible on the table in front of me.

The questions were shamelessly about the Bible and its interpretation. I was asked, “What is the message of the book of Romans and its first chapter?” and “What do I mean by the words ‘sin’ and ‘shame’?” . . . The police asked if I would agree to delete my writings within two weeks. I said no and reasserted my belief in the Bible’s teachings, no matter the consequences. I will not apologize, I explained, for what the apostle Paul has stated.

The possible sentence for the crime of “ethnic agitation,” of which I have been accused, is up to two years imprisonment or a fine. In Finnish law, it falls within the “war crimes and crimes against humanity” section of the criminal code. The “hate speech” law had passed parliament unanimously without any real debate.

In the trial at the District Court, the prosecutor at first stated that the trial would not be an inquisition concerning the Bible. But then she . . . claimed that my views amounted to a doctrine that she summarized as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” This doctrine she regarded as insulting and defaming because, according to her, you cannot distinguish between the person’s identity and his or her actions.

Räsänen expects the case will go her country’s supreme court. Finland currently has a small but flourishing Jewish community—but one could imagine such draconian laws being used against Orthodox members of this vulnerable minority by an unsympathetic government.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.