Koran-Burning Pastor Unrepentant in Face of Furor

Terry Jones says the “Braveheart” film poster in his Florida office gives him spiritual sustenance.

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
NYT

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — His church’s membership is down to just a few of the faithful. He is basically broke. Some of his neighbors wish him ill. And his head, he said, carries a bounty.

Yet Terry Jones, the pastor who organized a mock trial that ended with the burning of a Koran and led to violence in Afghanistan, remained unrepentant on Saturday. He said that he was “saddened” and “moved” by the deaths, but that given the chance he would do it all over again.

“It was intended to stir the pot; if you don’t shake the boat, everyone will stay in their complacency,” Mr. Jones said in an interview at his office in the Dove World Outreach Center. “Emotionally, it’s not all that easy. People have tried to make us responsible for the people who are killed. It’s unfair and somewhat damaging.”

Violent protests against the burning continued on Saturday in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where 9 people were killed and 81 injured. The previous day, 12 people were killed when a mob stormed a United Nations building in Mazar-i-Sharif, though on Saturday the top United Nations official in Afghanistan blamed Taliban infiltrators for the killings. He said the victims had been deliberately murdered rather than killed by an out-of-control mob.

(More here.)