Preacher threatened with arrest for reading out extracts from the Bible in public

August 17, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

www.telegraph.co.uk

A street preacher is at the centre of a row over freedom of speech after police threatened to arrest him for reading the Bible in public.

Lawyers acting for Miguel Hayworth, 29, have demanded an explanation over the alleged intimidation and abuse of power by three officers.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, the director of the Christian Legal Centre, has written to Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, over the incident.

She claims that Mr Hayworth and his father, John, 55, were unlawfully and unfairly treated as they preached Christianity in the city at the end of July.

“They were clearly told that reading the Bible and preaching can be offensive and that they could be arrested,” she wrote.

“Furthermore, they were subjected to abuse and intimidation. They were told that they were being monitored and filmed,” she wrote.

Critics claimed that a Muslim preaching his religion in the street would not have been treated in such a way by police.

Mr Hayworth, a voluntary worker who is married with two children, has been a street preacher in the Manchester area for five years and he is often accompanied by his father.

He said that he and his father had decided to preach from 11am at St Ann’s Square in Manchester instead of their usual place on nearby Market Street.

He was reading passages from the Old and New Testaments while his father distributed leaflets containing the message of the gospel.

“At 2pm, I was approached on more than one occasion by several police officers who falsely accused me, stating that I was inciting hatred with homophobic and racial comments,” he said.

“One plain-clothed officer, who was with the other two uniformed officers, said: ‘It is against the law to preach and hand out tracts: preaching causes offence and handing out tracts is harassment and could result in an arrest.’”

Mr Hayworth said that at about 2.30pm a second officer confirmed that his colleague had accused the preacher of inciting religious and racial hatred and wanted to warn him that this was an arrestable offence.

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