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Posted: December 15, 2009
11:16 pm Eastern Four Christian ministers who traveled to Oslo to deliver the message of
Christ at the festivities surrounding the Nobel prizes were arrested
over the weekend but then released after authorities decided to drop all
charges.
Word of the effort to reach out to the Norwegian city while President
Obama was in attendance to accept the Nobel Peace Prize comes from Joel
Thornton of the International Human Rights Group. He worked previously on behalf of preacher Larry Keffer, who operates
through the Biblical Research Center in Tampa, Fla. Keffer had been arrested at least twice for talking about Jesus in Oslo,
where Obama traveled to accept the prize for which he was nominated only
days after he took office. Keffer, whose previous arrests came while he was working with Norwegian
evangelist Petar Keseljevic and whose cases still are being challenged,
was working with other American evangelists, including Keseljevic, Ruben
Israel and Larry Craft this week in Oslo. The team had been ordered to leave the city center area in Oslo and stay
away or face arrest late last week. Then as they were preaching near the
entrance of a Will Smith concert over the weekend, all four were taken
into custody by police. "Ruben and Larry Keffer were arrested after a 10-minute discussion with
the police," Thornton reported that " Larry Craft continued to preach
while Petar Keseljevic videotaped. "Craft and Petar were then arrested even though Petar was not preaching
or sharing his faith," Thornton said. "The four were held in jail for over eight hours. They were given a
chance to pay fines and be released without the need for a hearing. They
all refused to pay the fine," Thornton reported. "The state's attorney left for about 30 minutes. When he returned he
informed the men that the charges were being dropped and all evidence of
the arrest was being removed from the record," he said. "It seems convenient that the police got the evangelists off the streets
during a large public event, but wanted to keep no record of their
actions, particularly when you consider that this type of behavior is a
violation of Norwegian and European law," Thornton said. It was reported that when police ordered the evangelists away from
Oslo's city center and threatened them with arrest, late last week. "They brought banners with messages about abortion, change,
homosexuality, and Old Testament Scriptures regarding the effects of
wickedness upon any nation. One of the banners stated that Hitler was
wrong for killing the Jews, and abortion is also wrong," Thornton said. Almost immediately, police agents told the evangelists to remove their
banners and their signs, then move across the street, even though the
nation's laws formally recognize freedom of speech. "A few minutes later the Oslo police again approached the evangelists
and ordered them to lower their voices. Again, the evangelists complied
with the order of the police. "At this point the Oslo police ordered the evangelists to stop sharing
their message or be arrested based on the Oslo police law. Oslo police
stated that they were ordering them to leave because they were afraid of
a riot even though there was no one in the crowd who was upset about
the message being delivered by the evangelists," Thornton reported. Then, as the evangelists prepared to leave, they were told they were
banned from the center of Oslo for 24 hours and would be arrested if
they returned under any circumstances. At the American embassy, they were told they could call a telephone line
for citizens if they wanted to lodge a complaint. Thornton said Runa
Bunaes, the chief of operations for the Oslo police, confirmed she would
stand by the orders of the officers on the streets.
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