Sometimes, in New Zealand’s public places, one gets a whiff of annoying fundamentalist street preachers. When I was in my twenties, there was a particularly stupid fake American ex-surfie called Ray Comfort who used to whinge about abortion and homosexuality in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square.

While I think these people are rabid rabble rousers, I think Norway went too far in May this year, when it arrested two street preachers, Larry Keefer (Tampa, Florida) and Petar Keseljevic (indigenous Norwegian), who were talking to folks on the sidelines of Norway’s constitutional day celebrations in Oslo. The two fundamentalists were found guilty of not obeying the police, who had apparently told both gentlemen to move on, and they had been arrested for not obeying that order, related to public safety.

Keefer and Keseljevic are concerned that this contravenes Sections 9 (religious freedom) and 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which Norway was a signatory to.

(Keseljevic and other “Open Air Preachers” turned up outside Denver’s Democratic National Convention this week, protesting against virtually all of the liberal values that Democrat Presidential nominee Barak Obama endorses).

Recommended:

Peter J Smith: “Norway Trial Court finds Missionaries Guilty for Spreading Gospel” Catholic Exchange: 18.07.08: http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/07/18/113196/