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Canadian pastor jailed 51 days over Freedom Convoy speech says he was mistreated, deprived of Bible

April 10, 2022 | | Print Article

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A Polish-Canadian pastor who just got out of jail last Wednesday after a 51-day stint at the Calgary Remand Centre jail claims that he was mistreated while behind bars.

“He said he was placed for a time in a small metal cage, not given water for a whole day, and deprived of both his glasses and a Bible for several days. He claimed he was strip-searched repeatedly, spent many hours in solitary confinement and was made to sleep on cold concrete,” according to Fox News.

“Some prison guards were respectful and even intimated to him their belief that he was a political prisoner, but he said others exhibited cruelty. Protests gathered daily for more than 40 days outside the jail, which he said prompted the prison administration to punish the other inmates on his behalf by placing all of them on lockdown.”

The pastor, Artur Pawlowski of the Street Church in Calgary, Alberta, was arrested on Feb. 7th and “charged with two criminal offences including mischief over $5,000 as well as interrupting the operation of essential infrastructure in a manner that renders it inoperative,” according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Fox News notes that he’d “delivered a speech” to the highly publicized trucker convoy, “members of which asked him to speak to their group and officiate a church service along Alberta’s border with Montana.”

In delivering the speech, he’d reportedly said that “for freedom to be preserved, people must be willing to sacrifice their lives. This is our time. If this is our Alamo, then so be it.”

Canadian prosecutors interpreted this as “an overt threat to violence” and used that as the basis for throwing him in what he alleges was an abusive jail where he was made an example of.

“They were punishing the entire prison because of me. And then they paraded me in front of the inmates, saying, ‘That’s the guy. You’re being punished because of him. So if you have a chance to do something, that’s the villain, that’s the guy,” Pawlowski told Fox News.

“And I think that was the scariest time. I was told by inmates, and they’re willing to testify, that they were approached by different people from within the administration — and the guards bribing them with different incentives to beat me up.”

Pawlowski has been arrested multiple times these past two years for standing up to the nation’s notorious strict COVID rules. In the process, he’s made a name for himself:

Pawlowski has been “speaking out” about his mistreatment at the hands of Canadian authorities since his arrest two months ago.

Six days after his arrest, his brother, David, posted a YouTube video where he read from a statement that Pawlowski had penned to his family.

“Hello, everyone. This is uh David Pawlowski, Pastor Pawlowski’s brother, and I want to read to you a statement about pastor Artur Pawlowski conditions in prison. He’s on his third day of fasting. He says that he’s standing strong. However, he is treated horribly. It has nothing to do with justice or law,” David said.

“He was strip-searched twice and checked for contraband. He was forced to go to the bathroom with an officer present and watching. They locked him twice in a small cage resembling a dog kennel, with no air circulation suffocating him for many hours, all without water to drink.”

“After that, he was subjugated to a hard bench three times for hours on end, all without any water to drink. When they took him back to his cell, his room was all upside down, flipped and searched for contraband,” David continued.

“His Bible was confiscated, and his narrated letter that was written to his lawyer was also confiscated. He had no running water in a cell for two days. However, he has seen other inmates awarded these privileges: books and writing material.”

Listen:

David also echoed his brother’s rhetoric about being a political prisoner.

“This is not justice but punishment and an absolute abuse of power. He has been moved to the back of the prison so that he cannot see or hear his supporters outside. The conditions of the cell are filthy, disgusting. Artur needs your help. He is asking all of you for help. Pastor Artur at this moment is a political prisoner,” he said.

Artur is arguably one of many political prisoners in Canada, a country that’s become increasingly authoritarian under the rule of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Churches throughout Canada have faced imprisoned pastors, locked facilities, steep fines, and continued interference from government officials,” Fox News notes.

“It looks like those villains, those tyrants, those dictators are not stopping. And I think that God wants this to be exposed. So those types of people never stop. They need to be exposed,” according to Pawlowski.

“They keep doing evil things, they keep exposing themselves and God keeps exposing them. And I just pray that in the process of Canada being judged by God and those people being exposed for who they really are, God would protect his church and his people.”

Despite his prayers, Trudeau won reelection last year, meaning he’s good to go til 2025 …

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Vivek Saxena
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