A Canadian pastor who was arrested and jailed for holding a prayer service for the trucker’s convoy that protested at a border crossing in Alberta last month remains incarcerated.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski has been in jail since Feb. 9. He was denied bail on Feb. 19 and is currently being held in solitary confinement at the Calgary Remand Center, his son Nathan Pawlowski told The Epoch Times.
“It’s incredibly cruel what they are doing to my father,” Pawlowski said.
Pastor “Art” has made international news in the past for multiples arrests for refusing to comply with COVID-19 mask mandates and denouncing vaccine mandates.
A 2021 video of him standing up to a group of police and health officials who entered his church during a service he was giving went viral.
Pawlowski was most recently arrested on Feb. 8 at his home in Calgary, a day after he gave a speech to truckers protesting at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta, telling them to “hold the line.”
At a Feb. 19 bail hearing, a Canadian prosecutor argued that Pawlowski’s Feb. 7 speech incited the truckers, similar to the allegations made against former president Donald Trump about this speech that preceded the so-called Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In Pawlowski’s case, Crown prosecutor Steven Johnston also argued that his speech “contributed to enormous economic harm to the local, provincial and national economy and substantial community harm to ordinary Canadians.”
Provincial court Judge Erin Olsen agreed and denied Pawlowski bail.
Pawlowski was charged with “interfering with critical infrastructure” and “aiding and abetting mischief” under Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act.
His attorney Sarah Miller said he is the first citizen to be charged under Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act.
The arrests may be an omen for the American convoy of truckers who have been in the Washington D.C. area protesting against COVID-19 mandates.
Last week, city police told the truckers that they would soon start arresting them for impeding traffic.
Under the name The People’s Convoy, the truckers have been circling the U.S. Capitol since they arrived in the area the first week in March.
A few days after the threat, an organizer of the convoy, declared publicly that the group was going to reclaim a two-block section of the city known as Black Lives Matter Plaza.
As part of the plan, Mike Landis pledged that the group will remove the “Black lives Matter” giant yellow lettering that stretches down 16th Street.
So far, that action nor any arrests have taken place. Like the Canadian truckers, the American truckers are protesting government-ordered COVID-19 mandates and other government directives seen by the groups as an overreach and violation of civil rights.
In addition to Pawlowski, several organizers of the Freedom Convoy were also arrested and were being held without bail until recently for comments they made.
Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were both released on the condition that they leave Ottawa and the entire province of Ontario.
Pat King, a vocal protester who was incarcerated for comments he made, still remains in jail. His bail was denied on Feb. 25.
When Pawlowski was released in 2021 following his arrest, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Adam Germain told him he was “on the wrong side of science” and ordered him to preach the government belief that masks and mandates are beneficial against COVID-19.
