The U.S. pastor behind "International Burn a Koran Day" said he would "possibly" try again to enter Canada after border officers turned him back Thursday as he was on his way to speak in Toronto.

"We will see," Terry Jones said in an interview. "We were looking forward to coming there and we were looking forward to speaking. … We were definitely disappointed and we were surprised."

At the Windsor border crossing, Canada Border Services Agency officers questioned Mr. Jones and searched his car and luggage for more than four hours before denying him entry on the grounds of criminality.

The CBSA also confiscated signs found in his car that read "Islam is the New Nazism" and "Koran Burning Site." But he said they were from a rally in Michigan and he did not plan on burning any Korans in Canada.

National Post, 11 October 2012

The Examiner reports that the "debate" went ahead without Jones. The speakers were Allan Einstoss, who was arrested earlier this year after trying to intimidate participants at a Quds Day rally with a 165-pound mastiff that had an Israeli flag tied round its neck, along with Hindutva extremist Ron Banerjee who organised the "Walk Your Dog in Front of a Mosque" protest in support of Einstoss, and Masud Ansair, author of the book Psychology of Mohammed which asserts that "Islam is founded on the bases of terrorism and bloodshed".

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Moments later, Gainesville Fire Rescue issued the church a citation for violating the city's fire ordinances.

Saturday's act of protest took place in spite of published reports that the Pentagon had urged Jones to reconsider, expressing concern that American soldiers in Afghanistan and elsewhere could be put at greater risk because of the act.

About 20 people gathered Saturday on church property at 5805 NW 37th Street about 5 p.m. for the planned burning. Several Gainesville police officers were stationed across the street from the church or were patrolling the area. A few people watched the scene, but there were no protesters.

Jones and another pastor demanded the release of the Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani from an Iranian prison. Jones said Nadarkhani faces execution.

Jones spoke at a podium that was far enough away that he could not be heard by people along 37th Street. The event was streamed live over the Internet.

After the speeches, copies of the Islamic holy book and an image depicting Muhammad were burned at about 5:50 p.m. in a portable fire pit. Shortly afterward, officers in two Gainesville Police Department cars drove onto the property. With them was a GFR official, who issued the citation.

Fire Chief Gene Prince, contacted by The Sun afterward, said Jones had approval for a burn but did not have the required authorization to burn books. Prince said Gainesville has restrictive fire ordinances, adding that books cannot be burned without authorization because of environmental concerns over the burning of glue and bindings in books.

The fine is $271, which includes court costs, Prince said.

Gainesville Sun, 29 April 2012

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The Pentagon is appealing to Florida pastor Terry Jones against repeating last year's burning of the Qur'ran and images of Muhammad that led to widespread rioting and deaths round the world.

US officials are monitoring the situation and the military is fearful for the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan and elsewhere if Jones goes ahead with his plan, announced on his website, to set fire to the Qur'an next week.

Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida and self-appointed scourge of Islam, has set a deadline of 5pm on Saturday April 28 for his demands to be met for the release of a Christian religious leader in Iran. If the Iranian cleric Youcef Nadarkhani is still imprisoned, Jones says he will set fire to a Qur'an and multiple images of Muhammad.

The threat from Jones comes on top of a row over the publication this week by the Los Angeles Times of pictures showing US troops with dismembered bodies in Afghanistan in 2010 and the apparently accidental burning of Qur'ans and Islamic religious documents by US troops at Bagram airport in Afghanistan in February that left 41 dead and more than 200 injured.

The last time Jones organised such a spectacle was on March 20 last year when he burned a Qur'an dressed in a judicial robe in the grounds of his church. The act prompted attacks on a UN compound in Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan in which seven UN employees died, and there were other fatal protests around the region.

Asked by the Guardian whether the cost in terms of lives lost of his previous escapade did not make him pause, Jones said that the impact of his Qur'an burning was not his responsibility. "What happened last time and what could happen this time is not our responsibility. All we did was burn a book. It posed no threat to anyone else, yet riots broke out several thousand miles away – which just proves how extreme Islam is."

Guardian, 20 April 2012

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