A Canadian court has ruled that two Christians who had been banned from distributing materials at a university had their rights violated by officials.

Peter LaBarbera and Bill Whatcott were arrested in April and forced to leave the University of Regina after they refused to stop handing out information providing the truth about abortion and other issues about the Christian faith.

“We are a diverse campus. We are a welcoming campus,” University Vice President Tom Chase told reporters at the time. “We celebrate that diversity, and our staff felt that the material and some of the things they had with them simply contravened that policy and we asked them to leave.”

Judge Marylynne Beaton said that both men were not guilty of any crimes and that they had the right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to distribute their information to anyone who wanted to read it.

“I find that the purpose of Mr. Whatcott and Mr. LaBarbera attending the University of Regina was to communicate information and their actions were passive and non-aggressive,” she wrote. “Therefore, notwithstanding that the university may be private property, I find that [the Charter] may be used as a defense to a finding of mischief by interfering with university property as they had the right to communicate in a peaceful manner on university property.”

“I do not accept that the accused’s removal, in order to protect students from the accused message, represented a minimal impairment on freedom of expression,” the judge continued. “In this case, the university’s response was disproportionate to the peaceful distribution of flyers and was not reasonable and demonstrably justified.”

Both men said they hope the judge’s ruling will help Christians across the country who have been silenced by government officials.