A charity volunteer in the UK was arrested and charged after she told the police she “might” be praying silently when questioned for standing on a public street near an abortion facility.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, Director of the UK March for Life, was standing near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham, with no signs or protest material when police approached her after receiving a complaint that someone was praying in their mind.
“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind,” Vaughan-Spruce said.
🚨NEW: A Birmingham charity worker has been arrested and charged after silently praying near an abortion facility 🚨
Isabel, a woman of good character, who has provided assistance to vulnerable women and children, has been criminalised for her thoughts:https://t.co/5asU1bANp8
— ADF UK (@ADF_UK) December 20, 2022
“Censorship zones purport to ban harassment, which is already illegal. Nobody should ever be subject to harassment. But what I did was the furthest thing from harmful – I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, inside the privacy of my own mind. Nobody should be criminalized for thinking and for praying, in a public space in the UK,” she added.
