A former Muslim who was arrested for trespassing at the Mall of America didn't deserve to be handcuffed like a criminal, says the head of a Minnesota-based ministry.

Ramin Parsa, a Muslim-turned-Christian originally from Iran, claims he was arrested for soliciting this summer after talking about his faith with two Muslim women.

Parsa claims a passerby heard him discussing Jesus and the gospel, and that person alerted mall security.

Parsa, a Los Angeles-area pastor, told PJ Media that he is headed toward a December 11 pre-trial hearing to answer a charge of trespassing at the Mall of America, the mammoth 500-store facility in Bloomington.

Parsa has said he was in town to speak at a church when he was invited by a church member to visit the famous mall, where he randomly ran into the Somali women who asked about his background. When the women asked if he is Muslim, the pastor told them he used to be Muslim but was now a Christian.

Jan Markell, founder and director of Minneapolis-based Olive Tree Ministries, says it appears the mall considers sharing the gospel "soliciting" but that shouldn't end with a pastor in handcuffs.

"All right then. Let's just break it up and say, Pastor, kindly go about your way and leave these folks alone," Markell observes. "But, no, liberal Minnesota has to arrest this pastor. This is a travesty."

It needs to be pointed out, she says, that the pastor insists the Somali women didn't object to discussing faith with a former Muslim but someone else interfered with that discussion.