Anti-Islam cartoon soon may be all over Washington
WASHINGTON — So far, relatively few people have seen the winning Prophet Muhammad cartoon from the Texas contest that provoked an attack by would-be jihadists this month.
Soon, commuters and tourists in the nation’s capital may be unable to avoid it.
The local transit agency is weighing a request from Pamela Geller, the antiIslam activist behind the Garland, contest, to plaster the cartoon on buses and subway stations.
“We cannot submit to the assassin’s veto,” she said in announcing her planned ad campaign.
The ad would feature a sketch of a bearded, angry, turbaned Muhammad wielding a sword and insisting, “You can’t draw me!” In the foreground is the cartoonist’s hand and pencil, with a voice bubble defiantly replying, “That’s why I draw you.”
High-profile locations
Geller’s request would put the cartoon on buses and on train dioramas in five subway stations: Foggy Bottom, Capitol South, Bethesda, L’Enfant Plaza, and Shady Grove. Foggy Bottom is near the State Department. Capitol South is the station closest to the U.S. Capitol, and a number of federal agencies and museums are headquartered near L’Enfant Plaza, ensuring exposure to a range of policymakers and tourists.
“Drawing Muhammad is not illegal under American law, but only under Islamic law,” Geller said in announcing her plan on the conservative Breitbart website. “Violence that arises over the cartoons is solely the responsibility of the Islamic jihadists who perpetrate it.”
Garland officers fatally shot the heavily armed attackers, Nadir Soofi, 34, and Elton Simpson, 31, when they opened fire in the parking lot outside the May 3 event, injuring a security guard.
Morgan Dye, spokeswoman for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Agency, said the ad is under review.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that monitors hate crimes and pushes back against Islamophobia, urged WMATA to reject the ads.
“Metro officials should treat Pamela Geller’s request the same way they would treat a request to display neo-Nazi or KKK ads,” he said Wednesday.
Geller has been hailed as a patriot and denounced as a bigot. The Long Islander became an anti-Muslim activist after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, gaining notoriety for fighting against construction of a mosque near the former World Trade Center site.
New York ads
This wouldn’t be the first time she has used public transit to amplify her message that Islamic law is creeping into American society. Last month, a federal judge sided with the American Freedom Defense Initiative, her pro-Israel organization, ordering transit officials in New York City to allow subway ads that even the judge deemed “offensive.”
Officials had resisted, citing concerns of potential violence. The ads feature a man in a head scarf, with the words, “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us closer to Allah,” and the tagline “That’s his jihad. What’s yours?”
The court loss prompted New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to consider barring all political advertising, so it could avoid having to accept ads it deems offensive.
In Washington, she has paid for bus ads featuring a photo of Nazi Adolf Hitler talking with a Muslim leader beside the message “Islamic Jew-hatred: It’s in the Quran.” In San Francisco, Geller was behind another ad campaign that showed journalist James Foley moments before ISIS beheaded him last year.