A court of appeals in Alberta, Canada, recently ruled that the arrest, jailing, and fining of a Christian pastor for resisting a Chinese coronavirus inspection of his church by police officers in April 2021 were illegal.
Police officers arrested Pastor Artur Pawlowski, of Calgary, Alberta, multiple times over the past year in connection with his repeated resistance to pandemic-related rules while leading church services.
The Christian pastor and his congregation famously threw local police officers out of their house of worship on Easter Sunday 2021 when the officers attempted to disrupt the service to check that congregants were complying with local coronavirus restrictions. Calgary authorities shut down Pawlowski’s church days later in retaliation for the incident.
Alberta authorities additionally punished Pawlowski, along with his brother and another local community leader, with an injunction, censorship, and fines. A Calgary judge convicted the Pawlowski brothers of contempt of court in June 2021.
The Pawlowski brothers later appealed this contempt of court charge and won their appeal on July 22. The Alberta court of appeals ruled that all of the punishments endured by the Pawlowski’s over the past year were illegal and that they should be reimbursed for the fines they were forced to pay.