Jones said he was stunned to see this arrest taking place in Canada, with its deep tradition of freedom of expression. Yet he acknowledged that two of the “hardest places to speak up for life” in North America are Hollywood and university campuses.

The case remains before the courts. The students have also launched legal action against the university over the arrests, as well as a suit against Carleton’s student council.

Jones, a Catholic father of six, spoke of how Pope John Paul II fought three big ideologies of evil: Nazism, communism and the culture of death. Even though he lived under the “Nazi boot” and communism, the “greatest evil he faced was the culture of death.”

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of the “dictatorship of moral relativism” that “uses language as a tool of oppression,” twisting words like “human dignity,” he said. Lobo, Shaw and Carleton Lifeline face this at the school.

“On campus they call Ruth a terrorist.”

Jones warned the first right dictators take away is freedom of speech.

“The only activists thrown into paddy wagons are pro-life activists,” he said. “You know you are speaking the truth when everyone else is doing whatever they want but you’re the one in the paddy wagon.”

Jones, who also produced the movie The Stoning of Soraya M about an Iranian woman who was stoned to death on trumped up charges of adultery, said Lobo “is inspiring people around the world.”

Jones founded the organization www.iamwholelife.com to fight for the respect for human life at all its stages.

Lobo and Shaw, who graduated from Carleton this spring, both plan to work for the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform. The centre uses visual displays to raise awareness of human life in the womb and trains pro-life activists with the mission to “make abortion unthinkable.”

More than $3,000 was raised at the event.