A Helsinki woman stands accused of public incitement to commit a crime, because she said in an interview with Yle that she would pay the fines levied on those taking part in civil disobedience by the environmental group Elokapina, the Finnish branch of Extinction Rebellion.
A public prosecutor on Wednesday demanded that the public broadcaster remove the woman's quotes from its story, published online more than two years ago.
According to the prosecutor, Annamaija Hakama urged or enticed people to commit a crime in the Yle article.
Yle published an interview with Hakama on its Finnish-language site on 29 September 2021. In the article, Hakama said that because of her career, she was not ready to take part in civil disobedience, such as defying police orders to leave.
However, she said that she was ready to pay the fines of others and had already paid the fines of three young people.
The prosecutor demands that Yle remove the following sections from the original Finnish online story, because according to the prosecutor, they violate the law.
For example, last summer she paid the fines of three young people arrested by the police.
"Financially, I think so stupidly or sensibly that it’s not worth it to be detained on the street myself, because with that fine money, I can pay the fines of maybe five or six students. Six people carried into a police car make more noise than one middle-aged grandmother," Hakama said in an interview with Yle.
In Finland, criminal fines are based on the convicted person's income.
According to the prosecutor, Hakama intentionally encouraged or enticed people to commit crimes of disturbing public order. According to the prosecutor, in her statement, Hakama led readers to understand that they would personally face no punishment for disobeying police orders.
Yle awaits court verdict
Yle’s editor-in-chief, Jouko Jokinen, said that the story will not be changed despite prosecutor's request.
"It describes what happened, the payment of fines, and this person's opinion. Of course we'll keep this posted and await the court's decision," he said.
Jokinen stressed that Yle does not take a position on guilt in advance, and does not seek to influence the court's decisions during a legal process.
According to Jokinen, the threshold for deleting articles or parts of them afterwards is very high.
Hakama trial began on Wednesday morning at the Helsinki District Court. She denies committing any crime.
Prosecutors have also charged Elokapina and a support association of fundraising violations, and also filed fraud charges against two group members related to a grant paid for by the Finnish Cultural Foundation's support association.
