Jussi Halla-aho (Finns), the speaker of parliament, has reported a comedian to the police for calling him a fascist on social media.
Both Halla-aho and the comedian, Ilkka Kivi, confirmed the report to Yle. Kivi expects to be interviewed by police next week.
Although police did not specify the comment, due to the date it occurred and the nature of the complaint, Kivi said it was probably due to his response to a post about Halla-aho's speech in the Ukrainian parliament.
A Ukrainian journalist had praised Halla-aho for his Ukrainian language skills, and Kivi had joined the debate to offer his own opinion about the former leader of the Finns Party.
"I commented to offer context that in my view Halla-aho is a fascist and a supporter of Orbán and has led Finland's most pro-Russia party," said Kivi, referring to Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán.
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Halla-aho, who has convictions for incitement and launched a 'freedom of speech' programme when he led the Finns Party, said he wanted to clarify what was permitted in public debate.
"I have not made many of these [criminal complaints], or requests for the police to investigate," said Halla-aho. "But I thought that it would be interesting to see where the boundaries lie. Is it really possible to present these kinds of false claims about someone else in a public discussion?"
Kivi said he was not worried, and that Halla-aho had every right to clarify the law.
"I'm not worried, because I did not at any stage write anything slanderous about Halla-aho, only described appropriately and precisely what kind of politician he is and what kind of politics he engages in," said Kivi.
"You would think that a speaker of parliament and presidential candidate would have better things to do than hound a stand-up comic over his phrasing."
In 2011 Halla-aho suggested that Greece might be better managed by a military junta. He subsequently apologised for those remarks, saying that he did not, in actual fact, believe a military junta should rule the then-crisis hit EU member.
As leader of the Finns Party he did attempt to draw a distinction between the party's far-right fringe and more mainstream members, expelling several ethnonationalists from the organisation.
His blog's following helped build his power base in the early 2000s, with racist comments on the site returning to public attention last summer when the Finns Party entered government.
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