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Catholic World News News Feature

Slovaks protest for Swedish pastor jailed for comments on gays July 29, 2004

The recent jailing of a Swedish Pentecostal pastor for "hate speech against homosexuals" has incited a rebuke from Slovakia's ruling Christian Democratic Movement (KDH). Interior Minister Vladimir Palko took his complaint directly to Cecilia Julin, the Swedish ambassador in Slovakia. Palko told Julin that he felt compelled to voice his complaint directly to her.

Palko called the Swedish court's decision a case in point of how "a left-wing liberal ideology was trying to introduce tyranny and misuse the EU for this purpose," according to a Slovak Spectator account.

The KDH organized a press conference to draw attention to their party's protest of the decision, and to emphasize how important it is that Slovaks be freely able to express their views.

Pavol Hrusovsky, KDH chairman, said that the decision to jail Green was "a breach of human rights, the right to religious freedom, and the right of expression."

"In Europe people are starting to be jailed for saying what they think," Palko added.

Earlier in July, Ake Green, pastor of a Swedish Pentecostal church in Kalmar, Sweden, was sentenced to one month in prison by a Swedish court, for inciting hatred against homosexuals. Green was prosecuted in January for "hate speech against homosexuals" for a sermon he preached last summer citing Biblical references to homosexuality.