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| Anti-Islam advertisement appears in NY subway |
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 A pro-Israeli advertisement comparing Muslims to barbarians has appeared in several New York City subway stations following a U.S. court order allowing such hate advertisements to be posted in public.
The provocative billboard advertisement, which reads, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, defeat Jihad,” made its appearance in 10 subway stations on Monday, nearly a fortnight since the global protests over a U.S.-made blasphemous film against Islam began.
The advertisement, the brainchild of Pamela Geller, the executive director for the pro-Israel American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and publisher of a blog called Atlas Shrugs, drew immediate criticism from some riders.
"I think it's unfortunate that someone would want to put that up,” said Cameron McCabe at a subway station in midtown Manhattan.
The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) had reportedly refused to put up the inflammatory banner, citing a violation of its policy against ads that are demeaning.
However, on July 20, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York issued a ruling, ordering city officials to install the anti-Islamic banner advertisement for public display, based on the First Amendment right of free speech. From today, the banner will be displayed for a month.
The AFDI previously gained notoriety when it lobbied against the creation of a Muslim community center near the site of the now-destroyed World Trade Center.
Geller is a co-founder of the "Stop Islamization of America" foundation, which has been described as a hate group by international nongovernmental associations.
An identical Islamophobic banner had earlier been posted on public buses in the Western U.S. city of San Francisco through August and early September.
The development comes as millions of protesters throughout the Muslim world have been staging anti-US demonstrations to condemn the blasphemous movie made in the United States and a French magazine’s recent publication of cartoons that insult Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
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