Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski, who was arrested Saturday for allegedly violating public health orders by holding church services during the pandemic, said he felt like he was living in Hong Kong after he was released from jail on Monday night.
“I just woke up in Hong Kong a few days ago,” Pawlowski said in an interview with Newsmax hours after his release. “I mean, I thought I emigrated to our beloved Canada, but I am in Hong Kong, full force.”
Hong Kong people have been fighting for freedom in the past few years but have been brutally crushed by the CCP (China Communist Party)-backed local government, and many activists were recently arrested.
“It’s insanity—arresting pastor[s], shutting down churches. Craziness,” Pawlowski added.
“I have become, with my brother, a political prisoner. We were taken to custody, thrown on the police van like a piece of meat, and we were denied access to the lawyer for 24 hours,” Pawlowski continued.
“It’s horrible. It’s a repetition of history,” Pawlowski said. “I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. I’ve seen the police abuse of power, people being arrested—you could be arrested at five in the morning, the doors could be broken for no reason. Just listening to a European radio, [would] warrant them to torture you, arrest you, and throw you in jail for five years.”
Pawlowski emigrated from Poland to Canada in the 1990s. He and his brother have held gatherings and have denied officials entry into their church located in Dover, Calgary. He has also been fined repeatedly for violating public health orders by holding church services.
“I escaped communism. I escaped Poland because I wanted to come to a country that is free,” Pawlowski added. “And here we are again, repeating the same mistakes, the same history. And I have to stand up and fight for my rights—not for doing evil, for just opening [the] church for the people that freely want to come and worship their God.”
These measures include new restrictions prohibiting all indoor gatherings, public or private; outdoor gatherings have a limit of five people maximum, or 10 people maximum for areas with lower cases; for places of worships, 15 in-person attendees are the maximum or 15 percent of fire code occupancy for areas with lower cases.
