Pastor Nalliah Ministries was speaking at a private seminar in Australia called to consider the impact of Islam when he quoted the Koran to demonstrate what some Muslims believe. As a result, he was found guilty of inciting religious hatred.
He has campaigned vigorously against the UK law and is jubilant at its defeat in the House of Commons.
Christian Today caught up with Pastor Danny during his visit to the UK following the defeat of the Religious Hatred Bill in Parliament at the end of January. The interview can be read in full below:
You were prosecuted in Australia under the Religious Freedom Bill. Can you explain a bit about how that came to be a successful prosecution?
Back on 9th April 2000 I am based in Australia but used to travel across the nations and do large meetings and I was preaching in the nation of Ethiopia. On 9th April the Lord spoke to me in a dream and said there was a law coming in Australia and would maybe take over the world to ban evangelism or more commonly known as free speech. At this point in time I jumped off my bed at five in the morning shouting, ‘No this cant happen Lord’ and the Lord spoke to me when I was awake and said, ‘If my people would be proactive and stop the disaster that is coming, if my people be reactive and pay a heavy price to take back their nation’. Then he spoke to me through 2 Chronicles 7:14, ‘If my people will humble themselves turn away from their wickedness and seek my face then I will hear from heaven.’
A prayer movement was launched in Australia based in 40 cities. Now, we started a prayer movement in anticipation of a law which was coming to persecute the church without having any understanding or clue from the government aspect as to whether there was a law or not. But praise God we discovered in 2000, December, after we started the prayer movement in August that there was such a law for the first time being introduced in the state of Victoria.I am currently here in Great Britain because I came to stand by the British people and be a mouth saying, ‘Hey, we have seen a victory. Let’s not go to sleep’.
Pastor Danny Nalliah, Catch the Fire Ministries
The first state to be launched was Victoria and in January 2002, it was launched in 2000 and then in 2002 became an official law in the state of Victoria. March 2002 we ran our seminar entitled ‘Insight into Islam’. The seminar came about as a result of September 11 and the Christian community wanting an understanding of the true features of Islam. Our seminar was held on 9th March 2002 and the Islamic Council of Victoria, because they have a law under which they could take someone to task, and decided to send three Anglo-Saxon converts to Islam who posed to be Christians and came to the gathering of 250 to 300 Christians in a church.
