A court in Helsinki today convicted two investigative journalists for leaking classified information about Finnish military espionage in a case that raised press freedom concerns.

“We are disappointed with this decision. Despite the commutation of the sentence, the damage to freedom of expression has already been done,” Andero Muka, editor-in-chief of their newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, said in a statement.

The main author of the article was sentenced to pay a fine in the amount of a share of his income of several thousand euros, while the other author of the article was not fined. Charges against a third party, their leader, were dropped. The decision can be appealed.

The prosecution asked for at least one and a half years for each of the three suspended sentences.

The three journalists denied the accusations, while their lawyers said no state secrets were being released.

The conviction stems from a 2017 article that contained 10-year-old information about Finnish military espionage operations “classified in the interests of Finland’s external security,” the court explained.

The investigative article details the “organization, capabilities and supply” of the army communications center in Jyväskylä, 230 km north of Helsinki.

“Good social reasons” for writing an article

According to Sanoma Media, the newspaper’s parent company, “there were good social reasons for writing this article.”

At the time, Finland was preparing a new law on intelligence services aimed at enhancing the ability of the intelligence services to monitor data traffic.

According to Sanoma Media, this bill “restricted the basic rights of the citizen.”

The Court ruled that disclosure could only be justified on grounds of public interest in the event of a “substantial disclosure” such as “abuse of power or other unlawful activity by the authorities”.

The Court ruled that this did not apply to the article in question and that disclosure could not be considered “harmless”, although it “does not threaten Finland’s external security”.

Disclosing a secret national interest that falls under the category of high treason can lead to imprisonment of up to four years in Finland.

Pavel Salai, director of the European Union press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontières), called the verdict “very disturbing”.

When “a country ranked first in the Global Press Freedom Index” harasses journalists for writing “on matters of national security,” it sets “a dangerous precedent for press freedom in the world,” he said.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP, dpa, Reuters.}