Pastor plans to burn effigy of Prophet of Islam

by Neha Sengupta from Mumbai
April 14, 2011

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1381/pastor-plans-to-burn-effigy-of-prophet-of-islam

Look into India, a developing South Asian nation, where people of multiple religious faiths live in harmony. Even atheists are allowed to live in peace in this country, which already has attained the glorious goodwill being the truest secularist nation in the world. On the other hand, India enjoys a great status being a democratic nation for decades.

But, at the other side of the Atlantic, a pastor named Terry Jones, who runs a small church in Florida in United States, burned the Koran on April 9, 2011, stating "it was found "guilty" during a "trial" at his church."

See the video of the mock trial and burning of Koran here.

Jones said about 30 people attended the mock trial at his Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville. After a six-hour trial on Sunday that featured a Christian convert from Islam as a prosecuting attorney and a Dallas imam as a defense lawyer, a jury of 12 church members and volunteers made the judgment, Jones said.

He said the punishment — burning the book after it had been soaked in kerosene for an hour — was determined from four choices on his organization's Facebook page. He said "several hundred" were polled and voted for burning over shredding, drowning and facing a firing squad.

Jones has launched a new organization, Stand Up America, and plans to protest the Quran, Shariah law and "radical Islam," and has scheduled an April event in front of an Islamic center in Dearborn, Mich. Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, declined to comment at length about Jones' trial.

"Terry Jones had his 15 minutes of fame and we're not going to help him get another few minutes," he said.

Before I proceed with this article, I would like to draw the attention of my readers to a specific comment by Terry Jones, where he said, during this mock-trial the holy Koran was already soaked in kerosene, which very clearly tell everyone that the sole intention of this man was actually to burn Koran and simply stage the so-called mock trial to draw attention of media.

Following this much unwarranted incident of burning the holy Koran, a number of nations have strongly condemned the barbaric attitude of Terry Jones and demanded his trial. Gambian government demanded immediate execution of this man. In its statement, the Gambian government said: "We learnt with utter dismay, shocks and consternation of the burning of a copy of the Holy Quran by Terry Jones last month in the United States of America. This heinous act of infamy, bigotry and provocation we condemn in the strongest possible terms. Terry Jones has carried out his threat which is a declaration of War on Islam and Muslims, thereby endangering world peace and security as we the Muslim Worldwide cannot stand idly by and allow rabid dogs, bigots and dangerous infidels like Terry Jones and his collaborators to not only defame Islam, but desecrate our noble and the glorious Holy Quran for whatever reason."

The official statement further said, "It is interesting that he carried out this heinous act with impunity under the guise of freedom of expression etc. and even goes about to shamelessly say that the killing of the UN staff in Afghanistan; a consequence of his dastardly act, buttresses his devilish and dangerous views about Islam. The killing of the UN staff, innocent and decent international civil servants who have absolutely nothing to do with Terry Jones's acts of infamy thousands of kilometers away in the US; as heinous a crime as Terry Jones's actions, goes to vindicate Gambian government's position that dangerous criminals must never be entertained under the guise of any freedom, as they endanger lives of decent and innocent people by their crazy and evil fantasies."

The Gambian government asked "This begs the question, if Terry Jones was an Imam in the same USA who threatens to burn a copy of the Holy Bible because of his evil and dangerous misconceptions about Christianity and calls for a Jihad against Christians; would he have walked free from that platform and go about his business for about five months still protected by the same freedom of expression and eventually ends up carrying out his threat by burning a copy of the Holy Bible? The answer definitely is No. He would have been arrested on the spot and taken off the streets at best; and at worst, he would have been sent to Guantanamo Bay and locked up. Why is Terry Jones being treated differently from those Muslims that have similar views about Non Muslims and the West?"

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the burning of the Muslim holy book by Pastor Terry Jones.

Pakistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said that the act was reprehensible, and could only be the work of extremists, designed to provoke dissent and discord across the world.

"Such sacrilegious acts go against the very concept of inter-faith harmony," Khar said. "There could be no justification for such acts. This has deeply hurt the feelings of the people of Pakistan and Muslims all over the world."

US President Barack Obama characterized the Koran burning as "an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry" while calling the violent responses "dishonourable and deplorable." Members of Congress overwhelmingly blamed Jones:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat of Nevada) said, he will "take a look" at introducing a resolution to condemn the Koran burning.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Democrat of Illinois) held that "this pastor with his publicity stunt with the Koran unfortunately endangers the lives of our troops and the citizens of this country and a lot of innocent people."

Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican of South Carolina) expressed a wish to "find a way to hold [American] people accountable" and called free speech "a great idea, but we're in a war."

Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers (Republican of Michigan) requested every American to "be thoughtful and mindful of each citizen's responsibility to do their part to make sure our soldiers come home safely."

While the US government, Senate and the Congress condemned the action of Terry Jones, it is observed that some of the religious fanatics in United States have expressed direct or indirect solidarity towards Pastor Terry Jones and are even trying to defend him, stating his actions were part of rights of expression.

Meanwhile, Terry Jones told reporters of receiving US$ 20,000 from various people, who supported and encouraged the burning of Koran. On the other hand, The church's membership had plummeted. So had its income, from selling furniture on eBay. The church's Internet service provider and insurance provider cancelled their services.

The conservative Fox News host Bill O' Reilly ripped into the Koran-burning Florida pastor who sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan, calling him an "insane Christian" who has "blood on his hands."

He said, Terry Jones "had to know fanatical Muslims would go crazy" when he oversaw the burning of the Islamic holy book on March 20.

The act ignited violent protests in Afghanistan, where an angry mob overran a United Nations mission in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

"Everyone involved in this story is disgusting," O'Reilly added, including the killers and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who called for Jones arrest knowing it would whip up "dangerous feelings."

A former hotel manager, Jones, who worked as a missionary in Europe for 30 years, took over as head of the Dove World Outreach Center, a fundamentalist Christian church in Gainesville, Fla., in 1996. He is often seen on the church's 20-acre compound with a pistol strapped to his hip.

According to the Gainesville Sun, Alachua County officials revoked part of the church's tax-exempt status earlier this year, saying portions of the 20-acre campus are used in for-profit businesses. The property is valued at more than $1.6 million, but the 1,700-square-foot taxable portion is worth only $135,000, according to the Gainsville Sun.

The Florida pastor whose public torching of the Koran sparked violent Muslim protests in the Mideast told WND (World News Daily) Jerusalem Bureau Chief Aaron Klein that an effigy of Islam's Prophet Muhammad may be next. Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Fla., was speaking with Klein on the latter's "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC 770 AM in New York City when the host asked if there was any truth to the rumor that Jones' church would put Muhammad "on trial," like it did with the Quran. He said, the trial against Muhammed will be held for 'his crime against humanity'.

Terry Jones said: "As far as judging Muhammad, it would take place in the same way. We would try to obtain experts on both sides of the bench, and if Muhammad was found innocent … then we would issue a public apology to Islam, to the Quran, to the followers of Muhammad for our actions at insulting [them]. If he was found guilty, then we would do in the same manner as the Quran burning. We would offer probably four or five different forms of punishment, and then the form of punishment that the people voted upon, that would be the punishment that would be executed."

Klein asked what kind of "punishment" Jones had in mind.

"Probably they would be forms similar to International Judge the Quran Day," Jones said. "On that day we had four forms of punishment – they were burning, grounding, shredding and facing of a firing squad. We would probably pick some of those kinds of forms, and if Muhammad was found guilty … we would put together some type of picture or some type of dummy figure to represent him, and then the execution would be done on that particular object we created."

Following the world-wide outrage on burning of Koran, now the Florida pastor is moving ahead with much dangerous plan to burn the dummy figures (effigy) of Prophet Mohammed. It is learnt from various blogs that Terry Jones is planning to hold another mock trial of Prophet Mohammed as well burn his effigy or shoot it during the month of Ramadan (month of fasting for the Muslims). It is well apprehended that, such trial and either burning or shooting the effigy or image of the prophet of Islam will lead to severe protest amongst the Muslim nations as well as Muslims in the West.

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