Artur Pawlowski: 'Our freedom is under attack from the very people that swore to protect our rights and freedoms'

Ezra was live on the scene in Lethbridge, Alberta covering Artur Pawlowski's trial.

Artur is a Christian pastor with a history of ministering to the poor and homeless, and he has faced legal troubles for decades, although he has never been convicted of a crime.

Ezra had just gotten out of the courthouse where for over an hour, the judge went through line by line his verdict. And the news is that Artur is guilty. Ezra continued to name the charges, and went into detail on what Artur's lawyers plan to do moving forward.

Ezra said:

So in a way, there's no clarity here. There would have been clarity if Artur had won on all cases. And I actually thought that that was a real possibility, because to me, the idea that a Christian sermon could be parsed over days by judges and found to be a crime, I thought that was too absurd even for 2023 woke Canada, but alas, it was not.

And we sat there for an hour. So Judge painstakingly described how Artur's sermon was in itself a crime.

the judge said that Artur encouraged the truckers to stay there, not to leave, not to go somewhere else. And though they were already obstructing the highway before he got there, he encouraged them to continue to do so. And he specifically said, don't go up to Edmonton, stay here, hold the line.

And he referred to Artur's reference to the Polish solidarity movement, which was a kind of a general strike.

So the judge said that what Artur said was actually incitement to commit a crime. That's what the judge said.

I think it's a very dark day for freedom of expression. It's not over yet. And we'll see what happens next.

To see all of our coverage of Pastor Artur Pawlowski's fight for civil liberties throughout the pandemic, and to help support his ongoing legal fees, visit SaveArtur.com.