Notorious anti-Muslim bigot Pamela Geller and her Islamophobic organization, “Stop the Islamization of America,” are at it again. They have purchased advertising space on SEPTA, Philadelphia’s public transit agency, to place anti-Islamic ads, similar to what the hate group has done in Washington, DC and New York City.
The ads range from calling opponents of Israeli policy “savages” to claiming that the Quran is anti-Semitic. SEPTA has refused to run the proposed ads because of the offensive content, and the matter is now in court.
Because SEPTA is a government agency that allows some political advertising, it may not be able to exclude political ads that it disagrees with. If the court rules that Geller’s ads are free speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, CAIR will counter the Islamophobic campaign by a campaign of its own. We will work with local officials and religious leaders from across Philadelphia to ensure that hateful speech does not lead to hateful conduct and that the people who see these ads know that they are misrepresentations from a hate group.
CAIR-Philadelphia’s staff attorney, Ryan Tack-Hooper, was interviewed last Friday, Sept. 19, on NBC10 about the Islamophobic ad campaign. He denounced the bigotry of Geller’s ads while calling for the ignorant ads to be countered by compassion and reason.
