Päivi Räsänen, a member of Finland’s Parliament, says the United Kingdom refused her Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), forcing her to change travel plans and avoid a scheduled stop in London.
The Christian Democrat MP said she had planned to return from the United States to Finland through Heathrow Airport. She said the ETA application received an automatic approval before British authorities withdrew the authorisation days before her departure, leaving her to book a different route home.
Räsänen told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat that the rejection came as a surprise. She said the decision did not state the reason for the refusal and referred only to information supplied in her application.
According to the newspaper, Räsänen declared a criminal conviction received within the past year after seeking legal advice on how to answer the ETA application. She said she also explained that the sentence consisted of a fine.
She said the application first received an automatic approval before British authorities informed her on the Friday before her Monday flight that the authorisation no longer stood.
Unable to obtain clarification before the weekend ended, Räsänen consulted a British lawyer about travelling through Heathrow without an ETA. She said she was advised against doing so because of the possibility of immigration checks during transit. She then purchased a ticket using another route and returned to Finland on Saturday.
“This was quite a shock for me,” she told Ilta-Sanomat. “It never occurred to me that the conviction would have consequences like this.”
The United Kingdom introduced the ETA system for travellers from many visa-exempt countries. Government rules state that permission must be refused where an applicant has committed criminal offences that caused serious harm.
Räsänen said her husband submitted an application at the same time and received approval. She believes her own conviction led to the refusal, although the British decision did not specify the reason.
She said she contacted the British Embassy in Finland but did not receive assistance in resolving the issue.
Räsänen has served in Finland’s Parliament for more than three decades and is a member of the Finnish Parliament’s friendship group with the UK Parliament. She told Ilta-Sanomat that she had previously visited Britain on many occasions and had also spoken at the UK Parliament on freedom of speech issues.
Her legal case began in 2019 after she criticised the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for supporting an LGBTQ+ Pride event. The social media post included an image of a church pamphlet published in 2004 that discussed Christian teaching on sexuality and marriage and cited a passage from the New Testament.
Finnish prosecutors charged Räsänen with agitation against a minority group over several public statements and publications.
She secured acquittals in both the Helsinki District Court in 2022 and the Helsinki Court of Appeal in 2023. Prosecutors appealed those rulings.
This year, Finland’s Supreme Court upheld her acquittal over the 2019 social media post but convicted Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola by a 3-2 majority over statements contained in the 2004 church pamphlet. The court imposed fines.
HT