Terry Jones: How free speech and Quran burning can lead to violence
The violent reaction to Terry Jones burning the Quran at his tiny Florida church continued to spread Saturday, and with it questions about freedom of expression with murderous results.
Dove World Outreach Center church pastor Terry Jones speaks to the media in Gainesville, Florida in September 2010. Afghan protesters, angered by the apparent burning of a Quran by Jones last month, killed seven United Nations staff in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, on Friday. Nine more people were killed in Kandahar on Saturday.
Scott Audette/Reuters/Files
The violent reaction to Terry Jones burning a copy of the Quran at the Florida pastor’s tiny church continued to spread Saturday, and with it questions about freedom of expression with murderous results.
Officials in Kandahar, Afghanistan, reported that nine people were killed and scores injured when a protest turned violent. This followed by one day the attack on a United Nations compound in Mazar-e Sharif in which five demonstrators and seven UN employees were killed.
Both episodes were directly linked to the recent burning of a Quran after Islam’s holy book had been “put on trial” by Pastor Jones and others at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla.
RELATED: 11 countries speaking out against Quran burning in Florida
Jones first became notoriously newsworthy last year when he threatened to burn a Quran on the anniversary of the 911 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Only when US Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, warned that the defamation of the Quran would likely cost the lives of US service men and women did Jones call off his "International Burn the Koran Day." Defense Secretary Robert Gates had called Jones as well.
