Michael Rodriguez

January 2, 2022

-Calgary Herald

 

Pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother Dawid Pawlowski, who gained notoriety last year as the heads of Calgary’s health order-defying Street Church,  were arrested on Saturday evening after attending a protest that allegedly took place outside Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping’s home.

Police confirmed to Postmedia they arrested two people for breaching health orders in relation to a demonstration in northwest Calgary but did not reveal the identities of those arrested. Those two individuals remained in police custody Sunday morning, with a release hearing scheduled for later in the day.

Social media posts suggest the people arrested were Artur and Dawid, with a video of the arrest being uploaded to Artur’s Facebook page.

In the seven-minute clip, the Pawlowskis — and an unidentified third party shooting the video — are pulled over by police.

The video shows one of the several officers on scene informing the brothers the stop is due to a suspected breach of conditions as well as “fresh charges.” Dawid gets out of the vehicle and is quietly arrested by officers, while the cameraman shouts at officers, calling them “Nazis.” While police struggle to apprehend Artur, he falls to his knees then lies on his stomach in the snow, to which an exasperated officer says, “He did that himself.”

“No criminals to catch today, hey?” shouts the cameraman. The same officer replies, “Just did.”

Eventually, officers pick up Artur by his arms and legs and put him in a cruiser.

A two-minute video of the protest was uploaded to Facebook by an anti-restriction group.

That clip shows a group of around 50 people outside what is claimed to be Copping’s Calgary home. The participants hold signs and shout chants spouting unfounded claims about adverse vaccine reactions and admonishing the Alberta government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic — specifically, the restrictions aimed to reduce the spread of the virus. The Pawlowski brothers can be seen in the crowd.

Police responded after receiving reports of the gathering, monitoring the situation with a helicopter and officers on the ground.

In October, a Court of Queen’s Bench judge handed Artur and Dawid hefty fines for deliberately violating two court orders to follow public health measures rather than the jail time sought by Alberta Health Services. Justice Adam Germain said imprisoning Artur would simply make him a martyr.

Germain ordered Artur to pay fines totalling $23,000, plus legal costs to AHS exceeding $20,000. Germain also handed Dawid a $10,000 fine. Mirror, Alta. restaurant owner Christopher Scott was also fined $20,000 in the same decision.

All three were also subject to a probationary order, which included that any of their public speeches note that the majority of scientific opinion contradicts theirs. That qualified speech provision — and one that mandated the Pawlowskis stay in Alberta through their probation — was overturned by the Alberta Court of Appeal in November.

c. CALGARY HERALD