A retired pastor is being prosecuted for an alleged breach of an abortion clinic buffer zone in Northern Ireland.
Pastor Clive Johnston, former President of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, was cautioned after holding an open-air service on John 3:16 on the edges of an abortion clinic buffer zone near Causeway Hospital, in Coleraine, on 7 July last year.
The 76 year old was later informed that he was being charged with two counts of breaking the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act.
He is due before court in Coleraine on Friday 21 March charged with allegedly seeking to "influence" people accessing abortion services at the hospital and for failing to leave the area immediately after being asked to do so by police.
Simon Calvert, Deputy Director of The Christian Institute, which is defending Mr Johnston, called the prosecution "an outrageous restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of speech".
He said that the buffer zone had effectively been used "to outlaw the Gospel", and that the police and Public Prosecution Service were "over-stepping the mark".
“Should a law designed to stop abortion protests be used to criminalise gospel preaching?" said Mr Calvert.
“We have amazing gospel freedom in this country and we encourage Christians to use those freedoms so that more people will hear about the love of God."
He continued, “It’s just not reasonable or rational to suggest that preaching the Gospel, with no reference to abortion, is a protest against abortion.
“For the record, this was an open-air service held on a Sunday, with about a dozen people in attendance, on a patch of grass, separated from Causeway Hospital by a dual carriageway. There was a wooden cross, and Clive leading the singing of well-known hymns on a ukulele.
"Yet the police summons says he ‘conducted a protest’ to try to ‘influence’ patients or staff attending the abortion clinic. This is religiously illiterate.”
Mr Johnston is being prosecuted despite not mentioning abortion in his sermon, nor displaying any placards referencing abortion.
If convicted, the grandfather of seven could be fined thousands of pounds.
The Christian Institute called the charges "ridiculous" and said they should be dropped.
“Speech that has nothing to do with abortion should not be criminalised as if it is an anti-abortion protest. This is fundamentally unjust," said Mr Calvert.
"If prosecutors succeed in getting a conviction against Clive for preaching about God’s love, what will that mean for other forms of non-abortion-related speech in these zones?
"Could people outside a hospital protesting health service cutbacks or junior doctors’ pay be prosecuted?
“The Christian Institute is backing this case because there is a vital principle at stake. If the Gospel can be banned in this public place, where else can it be banned? The authorities do not seem to have thought through the human rights implications of their decision to prosecute.”
