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American Muslim groups have denounced anti-Islamic advertisements which have been scheduled to run on New York City buses in the coming weeks, calling them vitriolic and hateful.
Six advertisements, with anti-Muslim content, are slated to appear on buses from September 29th on 100 New York City buses and on two subway entrances. The advertisements will run for four weeks, the Metropolitan Transit Authority said. They are reported to have cost $100,000 and to be sponsored by the far-right group, American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which led by blogger Pamela Geller, supports “counter jihad measures”. The group had publicized the advertisements on its website, and described the campaign as telling “truths about Islam and jihad that the government and media ignore”.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, the body which monitors hate groups as well as extremists in the United States, defines the AFDI as an “active anti-Muslim group”.
The advertisements will feature a disclaimer saying that the MTA does not endorse the views expressed in the ad. In the past, the MTA has rejected ads that included verbiage on killing Jewish people, saying that “it was reasonably foreseeable” that the ads would “incite or provoke violence” and interfere with “safe, efficient, and orderly transportation operations”.
Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the MTA, said about the campaign, “We review every viewpoint ad under the standards, but a series of court rulings have made clear that our hands are largely tied”. In the past, the MTA had tried to reject ads from the AFDI which referred to all enemies of Israel as “savages”, but was overruled in a lawsuit filed by Geller, with the presiding judge citing the First Amendment right to free speech.
“Our perspective is that she’s crackpot, and she leads a hate group and a hate organization”, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) board member Zead Ramadan said.
“(Geller) is really trying to capitalize on the Islamophobia surrounding (IS), which has absolutely no connection to Muslims in America. They do not represent Islam, and most Muslims in the world will strongly, strongly, vehemently tell you that these guys do not represent us. Their actions are not Islamic. It certainly doesn’t represent American and New York Muslims”, he said.
“It’s sad. It’s not what America stands for. We stand for e pluribus unum”, he added.