British police compensate woman arrested for silent prayer

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce received a payment of £13,000, the equivalent of nearly $17,000, from West Midlands Police, the Alliance Defending Freedom UK said on Monday. Police arrested her twice for praying silently in a so-called buffer zone outside an abortion clinic, where it was illegal to demonstrate for or against the center. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom described Vaughan-Spruce's arrests in May as a religious freedom problem in Europe.

What happened? Police initially arrested Vaughan-Spruce, a Christian, for praying silently in a protest-free buffer zone outside an abortion clinic in southern England in November 2022, according to ADF. Weeks after a Birmingham court fully acquitted her of charges of violating the buffer zone in February 2023, police arrested Vaughan-Spruce again for praying silently outside an abortion clinic again. Silent prayer is not a crime, Vaughan-Spruce said. She added that there is no place for thought police in 21st century Britain, an apparent reference to writer George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984.

Dig deeper: Read Bekah McCallum's report in WORLD Magazine about how German youth are showing a growing interest in the Bible.