Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski, who became famous for opposing COVID restrictions and being arrested multiple times is speaking out on how the same type of authoritarianism he experienced will soon be present in the U.S.
The Canadian pastor first made headlines in April when he asked "Nazi" police officers and health care officials to leave his church building before he was arrested a few weeks later for holding worship services.
Last week, Pawlowski traveled from the U.S. back to Calgary in Alberta, Canada, where he was arrested upon his arrival. Faithwire reported that the Canadian pastor was met by police at the airport, where they handcuffed him on the Tarmac and charged him with "failure to wear a mask."
"I came to the United States with a simple warning," Pawlowski said in a conversation with Fox News' Laura Ingraham last week. "You're next. If they came for me, be sure of it, they're coming for you as well."
Pawlowski, who leads the Calgary's Street Church in Alberta, Canada, called the police who arrested him "masked gangsters" and individuals who he "couldn't even consider...officers of the law." During Easter this year, Canadian police officers entered his church without a warrant. The visit was said to ensure the church was complying with COVID restrictions, which required an indoor maximum capacity of 15%, social distancing, and mask-wearing.
"Get out of this property!" Pawlowski shouted at the police. The Canadian pastor called them "Nazis" and "Gestapo," referring to Nazi Germany's secret state police. He added, "Nazis are not welcome here."
Pawlowski shared that the experience called to mind his years growing up under Soviet communism in Poland, calling his childhood a "disaster." He described how police would "break into your house five in the morning, they could beat you up, torture, they could arrest you for no matter what reason they would come up with." The Canadian pastor said that his experience in Canada was a "flashback" to his childhood in Poland.
"You came to freedom...This is feeling very Soviet to me," Pawlowski said. He admitted that he was facing up to four years of prison for the charges filed against him. The Canadian pastor lamented, "I was handcuffed like a common criminal, like a terrorist. They wanted to break me. They wanted to show the whole world 'You see what we do to those who dare to speak against our tyranny? If you will follow...you're next."
During a seven-minute statement at his sentencing hearing on Tuesday, Pawlowski said that he and his brother, Dawid, were being persecuted by Alberta Health Services and are now considered "political prisoners," the National Post reported.
The Canadian pastor, who presented himself as a "political prisoner of conscience," accused the AHS and politicians of "penalizing anyone that is opposing their unconstitutional medical tyranny" and likened today's situation with the Nazi period. Pawlowski said that they could "lock us up and throw the key away, but our political imprisonment will shout even louder about the hypocrisy."
