A Canadian pastor is facing his final judgment after three years of repeated fines, arrests and imprisonment for keeping his church open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artur Pawlowski, pastor of the Cave of Adullam congregation in Calgary, said he is accused of causing $400 million worth of damage for leading a church service during the truck blockade at the US-Canada border last year.
“This is the final culmination of more than 40 tickets for the tyranny of COVID, house arrest, prison, all of that,” Pawlowski told Fox News Digital ahead of his trial, which begins Thursday, February 2 in Lethbridge. alberta
Pawlowski, the first Canadian cleric to be fined for alleged COVID-19 violations, claims the charges against him are an attempt to criminalize his speech.
“It’s crazy,” he said.
He also criticized Alberta’s new premier, Danielle Smith, who said she discussed his possible amnesty last fall but has since “backtracked.”
CANADIAN PASTOR WHO WAS JAILED FOR 51 DAYS AFTER SPEAKING TO TRUCKER CONVOY ALLEGES ABUSE IN PRISON
Pastor Artur Pawlowski is arrested by Calgary police in the middle of a road on his way home from church on May 8, 2021.
(Arthur Pawlowski)
Pawlowski, who also runs a charity to feed Calgary’s homeless, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of charges stemming from his role in the truck convoy in Coutts, Alberta.
He is charged with damage in excess of $5,000, violation of the Critical Infrastructure Defense Act, and failure to comply with his condition of release to keep the peace and be of good behavior.
‘I will not obey’
Pawlowski first drew international attention in April 2021 when he expelled armed police officers and a health official from his church as they tried to inspect compliance with public health regulations during an Easter service.
He was seen in a viral video going after the authorities while comparing them to the Nazi Gestapo. When officials returned a week later with a warrant authorizing them to “do whatever it takes” to enter his church and arrest him, Pawlowski recorded himself shooing them out again, warning his viewers that Canada is looking more and more like the communist regime that his family endured in Poland. .
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Calgary police arrested the pastor five times after he continued to hold services in defiance of a court order, including once in the middle of a busy highway on his way home from church. On another occasion, he was arrested on the tarmac at Calgary International Airport after a speaking tour in the US.
Pawlowski told Fox News Digital at the time that authorities appeared to have been rummaging through his luggage at the airport and snooping through his laptop.
After multiple court appearances, a federal judge ordered in October 2021 that he recite a script publicly decrying his own views on COVID-19 and vaccines.
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Pastor Artur Pawlowski is arrested at his home on February 7, 2022, days after speaking to truckers protesting vaccine mandates along the US-Canada border.
(Arthur Pawlowski)
“I said, ‘I will not obey this court order,'” Pawlowski said at the time, before the order was stayed on appeal. “I refuse to obey the order of a crooked judge. He is not a judge, he is a political activist.”
When truckers in Coutts protested vaccine mandates by blocking the crossing along Alberta’s border with Montana last February, Pawlowski was invited to deliver a 20-minute speech urging them to “hold the line” against the government without resorting to violence. He also warned them not to travel to the provincial capital of Edmonton, fearing they would face a government crackdown similar to what happened to the truckers who protested in Ottawa.
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Rows of trucks block the US-Canada border during a demonstration in Coutts, Alberta on February 2, 2022, one day before Pastor Artur Pawlowski gave a speech that landed him in jail.
(Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Days after his speech, he was arrested at home and spent 51 days in two different prisons, where he claimed authorities abused him by locking him in a small cage, placing him in a psychiatric ward and trying to incite other inmates to hurt him. The inmates refused and some turned to him for spiritual guidance, he said.
‘The same villains’
Pawlowski told Fox News Digital that he has been under house arrest since his release from prison last April and is not allowed to leave his home without permission from his probation officer. He ran for political office and became the leader of the Alberta Independence Party last September.
Smith, who was sworn in as prime minister on October 11, was the first Canadian leader to apologize for the treatment of unvaccinated people in the country. Canada’s government has ordered vaccinations at federally regulated workplaces, issued travel restrictions, ordered businesses to close for months and arrested citizens who violated the lockdowns.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has tabled a proposal to pardon COVID-19 violators in the province, a promise Pastor Artur Pawlowski argued she hasn’t kept.
(Reuters/Mike Sturk/File)
The country’s treatment of the clergy drew the attention of some American neighbors. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., urged the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2021 to consider adding Canada to its watch list after a Baptist minister in Calgary was arrested when reportedly a police helicopter found his church meeting outside.
The Ohio State Legislature passed a resolution urging the same last March, and thousands protested at Canadian consulates across the United States during Pawlowski’s imprisonment.
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During a speech at the United Conservative Party (UCP) annual general meeting last fall, Smith noted that the multiple pastors who have been arrested in the generally conservative province “come to mind” when he thinks of the people who have been unfairly penalized. for disobeying COVID protocols. He also came up with a plan to pardon those offenders.
Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was caught with members of his cabinet violating his own COVID rules in 24 different ways over dinner in 2021.
(Keith Beaty/Contributor via Getty Images/File)
But Pawlowski said nothing materialized in his case. He blamed that on Smith’s cabinet members, whom he said feared for his own reputation after being involved in the prosecution of him under Smith’s predecessor, Jason Kenney.
“I think the biggest problem is that he named the same villains in his cabinet,” Pawlowski said, noting that some of the same cabinet ministers who were caught violating their own COVID-19 rules during a private dinner in 2021 remain in office. its place.
“She is extremely weak,” Pawlowski said of the new prime minister, whom he claims to have known for 15 years since they were both at Alberta’s Wildrose Party. “Remember, you’re dealing with a flip-flop politician who walks across floors, abandons people, promises one thing, and changes his mind.”
Pastor Artur Pawlowski preaches in downtown Calgary, Alberta.
(Arthur Pawlowski)
“I know her and she wants to please everyone, and she can’t stand anything,” Pawlowski added. He claimed that UCP representatives came to his house several times to offer him a deal not to run for office or leave his political party, but he refused.
“I’m a pastor,” Pawlowski said. “I’m not Judas Iscariot, I’m not the Whore of Babylon. I don’t betray people. So, I said no, and then [Smith] He went out in public and she said, ‘Well, I’m not going to bring the amnesty.
Citing the upcoming trial, an Alberta government spokesperson declined Fox News Digital’s request for comment in response to Pawlowski’s claims.
‘Refining Fire’
Pawlowski likened his trials to “a refining fire” which he said has broadened the scope of his ministry and strengthened his faith.
“I noticed, even in my own preaching, that everything we went through, and are still going through, just gave us a stronger faith and zeal and a confirmation that everything we read about in the Bible is actually the truth,” he said. .
Pawlowski said many of the Canadians involved in his ministry continue to suffer the lingering consequences of his government’s pandemic response, which he says has hurt the Canadian economy and forced many he knows personally to get vaccinated.
A sign in Times Square calls for the release of Pastor Artur Pawlowski in March 2022 while he was jailed in Alberta after speaking to the trucker convoy.
(Firebrand Action and Media)
It says there was an inconsistent application of COVID-19 protocols in the country that were intended to “eliminate or destroy the middle class.”
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“That’s why IKEAs and Walmarts were open, but small businesses were ordered closed,” he said. “I was able to bring my entire church and half my community to IKEA during the biggest lockdowns, where 500 people were allowed. But I couldn’t have a church service with 100 people.”
