A Finnish member of parliament has been found guilty by the country’s supreme court of inciting hatred after claiming that homosexuality was a “developmental disorder”, in a conviction that prompted criticism from far-right government ministers

Päivi Räsänen, of the Christian Democrats, made the claims in a pamphlet first published in 2004 and reproduced on the website of the Luther Foundation Finland and the Finnish Evangelical Mission Diocese in 2007

In a 3-2 vote, the supreme court on Thursday found Räsänen guilty of a crime when she republished the pamphlet on Facebook in 2019 and on her website the following year. She was fined €1,800. The court ruled her claim that homosexuality was a disorder of psychosexual development was incorrect

Räsänen was supported in her case by the US-based conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has tried to use her case as an example of censorship in Europe. The group has ramped up its global spending on litigation and other campaigns after successfully overturning Roe v Wade, which protected the right to abortion, in the US