Christians face travel clearance and visa refusals worldwide

However, she later received a notification that her electronic travel authorisation (ETA) from the UK had been denied with no explanation, according to a Christian Today report. Since the decision, she remains doubtful about her trip going through at all. She planned to speak at a conference and see their parliament.

The UK now requires ETAs from EU nationals and residents who do not have a visa or if they are in transit to another destination. Applying for an ETA is required before travelling to the destination in most cases, and it is digitally linked to one’s passport.

Räsänen is not the only one to be denied entry into another country. She stands among other Christians and some Christian organisations who have recently had their travel clearances or visa stays refused, often without a clear reason.

Räsänen's refusal comes after Finland’s Supreme Court convicted her of "incitement against a group of people" in a booklet she had written in 2004 entitled "Male and Female He Created Them". The court handed her a fine for publishing and keeping a text that had "insulted homosexuals as a group". For more info on her case, see our previous CNE reports. Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, who was involved in the booklet’s publishing, had seen his travel authorisation to the UK denied as well.

The authorities cited a reason for their refusal: "We are satisfied that you have been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas within the last 12 months." He says he cannot appeal the decision unless he applies for a visa.

Unfortunately, the UK was not the only one to deny him access. He says to Christian Today that he had also been denied entry into Australia when authorities refused his eVisitor application.

Such decisions, he says, pose difficulties in his position within the church and as chairman of the International Lutheran Council. Not only that, but "it also labels me as a criminal whom many countries want to prevent from entering", he says in the report.

Outside of Europe, Kenneth Arthur West, an American Christian missionary, found himself denied access when he was re-entering Turkey after a US trip. Although he has lived in Turkey for over 30 years, he believes his refusal may have come from his involvement with a Christian church.

His case is part of a bigger crackdown by the Turkish government on Christian missionaries there. Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF) has criticised Turkey for "misusing national security laws" in their expulsion of 200 Christian workers and their families over a five-year period, as reported by Stockholm Center for Freedom.

In Israel, some American Christian organisations have received cancelled visa applications and renewals from its government, especially over the last few years. Members of the groups, the Baptist Convention of Israel and the Christian Missionary Alliance and Assemblies of God, saw their A3 clergy visas refused.

These organisations were also given lengthy questionnaires regarding their religious beliefs, according to a report in Fox News. The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem had also seen their visas "held up".

The cancellations, which were prompted by a "low-level clerk in Israel’s Interior Ministry", triggered a dispute that was enough to get the attention of the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. Huckabee’s probe into the matter revealed that the Interior Ministry’s visa department decided to do their own investigations into each Christian organisation as to whether they should be seen as "religious institutions" and stay qualified for their visas.

Sources also told Fox News that the low-level clerk was "not particularly friendly toward Christian applicants" and that areas within the country’s Interior Ministry "are not sympathetic" and "don’t appreciate the relationship with the Christian world".

Late last year, Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the iconic American Evangelical Christian preacher Rev. Billy Graham, was denied a visa to India. He was supposed to participate in an event organised by the Kohima Baptist Pastors’ Fellowship. His refusal likely comes from previous comments about the Hindu religion that have circulated within Indian media.

According to a 2010 interview, he explained how the Hindu religion could never bring salvation: "No elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods will lead me to salvation. We are deluding ourselves if we think that all we need to do is organise a big kumbaya ceremony, hold hands, and everything will be better in this world. It will not get better," Graham said, which was quoted in PIME AsiaNews.

The Indian government’s decision sparked backlash in Nagaland, one of the few regions in India that has a Christian majority. The Naga Students’ Federation declared the decision "selective and discriminatory" as well as "deeply offensive to the feelings of the Naga people", according to PIME AsiaNews.