Nov. 16: Pastor Terry Jones, center, of the Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Fla., speaks to reporters across the street from the proposed Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site in New York. (AP)
The Koran-burning, Christian pastor Terry Jones said he intends to hold a rally outside Dearborn, Michigan’s City Hall to protest a recent court order that bars him from demonstrating outside the nation’s largest mosque, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Jones, who is the pastor from Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., was jailed Friday night after refusing to pay bond, according to the report. A six-person jury ruled that Jones, who previously said he intended to have a peaceful protest, was likely to breach the peace.
The judge set the bond at $1 on the condition the two men not go to the Islamic Center of America for three years. Mr. Jones said they paid the bond under protest.
Earlier this week, Kym Worthy, a Detroit prosecutor, said the threat of violence is too high to allow Jones to stage the protest.
She filed a petition asking a judge to block the protest, arguing that it may incite riots. Prosecutors point to the “hundreds” of email threats the preacher receives as evidence of the poison directed at Jones, Reuters reported.
Jones has previously stated that his targets are radical Muslims, not all of Islam. And in Michigan, he says he comes in peace, though he’s also bringing a gun.
"We have made it very clear that we are coming there with very, very peaceful intentions," Jones told WXYZ-TV. "We will be armed. We do have concealed weapons permits."
Jones made headlines when he recently reported burning a Koran at his church, sparking protests in Afghanistan that turned deadly. He previously had backed away from staging a similar burning on Sept. 11 under widespread pressure, including from the Obama administration.
"The city of Dearborn used the court as an instrument to prevent our protest from taking place today as scheduled, and has now violated our civil liberties," Mr. Jones said in a statement Friday.
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