On Friday, Helsinki District Court dismissed all charges related to the activities of the environmental activist group Elokapina (the Finnish branch of Extinction Rebellion) and its support association, Elonvaalijat.
There were three charges. First, the prosecutor had demanded punishment for four members of Elonvaalijat for giving a false report to an authority.
The indictment concerned two fundraising reports filed with Helsinki police in 2021. According to the prosecutor, the reports said that money was collected for demonstrations, network infrastructure maintenance and space rent, but the fact that the money was collected specifically for Elokapina's activities was concealed.
Demonstrations "cannot be considered illegal"
According to the prosecutor, Elokapina's actions were deliberately illegal and clearly endangered public order or safety.
"(The group) is trained in civil disobedience and crimes against public order. Their main modus operandi has been serious disruption of public transport and social functions and frequent and collective disobedience of the orders given by police," the prosecutor claimed.
According to the court, it was true that neither notice mentioned that the funds were collected specifically to support Elokapina demonstrations. However, it noted that Elokapina's demonstrations are permitted by the constitution and cannot be considered illegal in their entirety, regardless of the fact that some demonstrators may violate laws.
The court ruled that the information in the notifications was undisputedly true and that the funds were not used for a clearly illegal purpose.
At the same time, the court ordered that the proceeds of the fundraising efforts, just under 20,000 euros, should be returned to Elonvaalijat. The funds were confiscated in late 2021.
Fraud charge also dropped
The second charge related to alleged fraud in the awarding of a financial grant. According to the prosecutor, the support association of the Finnish Cultural Fund and an expert panel appointed by the Allianssi Youth Exchanges NGO mistakenly provided a grant of around 3,900 euros for illegal purposes.
Two people, including an Allianssi staff member, were accused of alleged fraud during the summer of 2021, but these charges were also thrown out.
Court rejects demand that Yle edit story
The third charge concerned public incitement to commit a crime. According to the prosecutor, in an interview with Yle in late 2021, an Elokapina supporter had expressed that she was ready to pay the fines of the young protesters arrested by the police, adding that she had already paid the fines of three protesters in the summer of 2020.
According to the prosecutor, the woman was guilty of urging or enticing to commit a crime against public order.
"With her statement about paying fines, the defendant made it clear that protesters who did not obey police orders would not face actual punishment," the prosecutor alleged.
The prosecutor demanded that Yle remove the quote about paying fines from the article, as well as a previous paragraph.
The district court rejected this, ruling that the article did not give the impression that the woman's intention was to persuade anyone to do anything illegal. It said that the woman's statement that she had previously paid fines and would possibly pay them in the future did not constitute incitement to commit a specific crime.
The court threw out the charges and the prosecutor's demand that Yle delete parts of the online article. The public broadcaster said earlier that it had no intention of doing so.
Earlier victory in administrative court
Thursday’s ruling follows another victory for the activists at the Helsinki Administrative Court. In January, it ruled that police had no grounds for banning Elokapina fundraising to cover detained activists' legal expenses.
That stemmed from a case in which several Helsinki police officers were accused of assaulting Elokapina protesters and negligent breach of duty after pepper-spraying demonstrators in the city's Kaisaniemi district in autumn 2020.
The police had claimed that the fundraising was to finance activities that were illegal or clearly endangered public order or safety.
One police officer was convicted of negligent breach of duty and fined for her role in overseeing the pepper spraying of protesters in Kaisaniemi. Charges against six subordinate officers were dropped.
