In a rare criminal prosecution concerning press freedom in the Nordic nation, two investigative journalists for a major daily newspaper in Finland were found guilty of disclosing confidential defense intelligence.
Tuomo Pietilainen was ordered by the Helsinki district court to pay a fine for his work as the primary author of a 2017 article with the heading Finland’s most secret place. The fine’s amount was not immediately made public.
Laura Halminen, a coworker of Pietilainen, received no punishment because she played a minor role in the reporting. The court cleared Kalle Silfverberg, who was serving as acting manager.
Pietilainen and Halminen, who adamantly denied any misconduct, may challenge the judgment. According to the reporters, the information shared was open to the public, according to the Huvudstadsbladet newspaper.
Ten-year-old information about the general location and duties of an intelligence unit of the Finnish defense forces was made public in a 2017 investigative report by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. It happened at a time when lawmakers were debating whether to give themselves more authority to watch over private information on online networks.
The court issued a statement saying that “several sorts of material about military intelligence were made public, which had been authorized to be kept secret for the sake of Finland’s external security.”
The article was required to be taken down from the Helsingin Sanomat website.
Finland has consistently ranked high in a list of nations with the most journalistic freedom put together by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
But due in part to the case against Pietilainen and Halminen, it dropped to fifth rank out of 180 nations last year.
The group described Friday’s decision as setting a “dangerous precedent” for press freedom generally as well as for the people of Finland.
It stated, “What message is this for the nations placed lower in the Index? If a court in Finland, a country ranked on the top of the World Press Freedom Index… prosecutes journalists for reporting on national security matters.”
The editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat, Antero Mukka, also expressed unhappiness with the decision. “The damage to freedom of speech has already been done,” he argued, despite the low punishments.
