Artur Pawkowski, the Canadian pastor known for his dustups with police for skirting draconian restrictions put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is warning Americans the same kind of authoritarianism is coming to the U.S.
The pastor first gained notoriety in April, when he kicked “Nazi” police officers and health care officials out of his church building before he was arrested weeks later for holding worship services. Pawlowski, who had been in the U.S., was arrested again last week upon his arrival in Calgary, where police met him at the airport and handcuffed him on the Tarmac, where he was charged with “failure to wear a mask.”
Similar government overreach is coming to the U.S., the preacher warned, if Americans don’t “rise up” against it.
“I came to the United States with a simple warning,” Pawlowski told 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 agreed with Ingraham’s assessment of the restrictions as “incrementalism toward socialism.”
“I grew up behind the Iron Curtain under the boots of the Soviets,” the pastor said. “What they’re doing today is identical to what I remember growing up. You see, when I landed after four months, not being in my own house, I wanted to hug my wife and kiss my children that were waiting for me.”
Instead, Pawlowski recalled, “I was handcuffed like a common criminal, al Qaeda’s most wanted, taken to police, thrown into solitary confinement like a criminal. I was not allowed to see my wife, not allowed to have my children.”
“That’s exactly what the communists did,” he continued. “That’s exactly what the Gestapo did before. They wanted to break me, they wanted to show the whole world: ‘You see what we do with those that dare to speak against our tyranny? If you will follow the steps of Pastor Artur Pawlowski, you’re next.'”
Pawlowski, who is of Polish descent, garnered international attention this spring when he kicked police — who were there to enforce mask and distancing mandates — out of his church building.
At the time, he chastised the government officials as “Nazi psychopaths” and “sick, evil people” who were “intimidating people in a church during the Passover.”
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