A conservative firebrand said Tuesday she plans to paper at least 50 MTA buses with Islamophobic posters following a judge’s ruling the ads were protected by the First Amendment.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge John Koeltl wrote the MTA had improperly denied displaying Pamela Geller’s controversial posters featuring a picture of a menacing man with his face masked in a Middle Eastern scarf next to the quote, “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.” The quote was attributed to “Hamas MTV” and included the tagline, “That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?”
Though the MTA had accepted other incendiary posters by Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, it declined last year to post the “Killing Jews” ad, saying it could provoke violence.
The judge disagreed.
“While the court is sensitive to the MTA’s security concerns, the defendants have not presented any objective evidence that the Killing Jews advertisement would be likely to incite imminent violence,” Koeltl wrote.
Geller hailed the ruling, and said she would pay for more posters to be displayed than she originally planned.
“Islamic supremacists and craven government bureaucrats are put on notice — sharia restrictions on free speech are unconstitutional and will not stand in these United States,” she said.
An MTA spokesman said “We are disappointed in the ruling and we are reviewing our options.”
Monica Klein, a spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio, said, “These hateful messages serve only to divide and stigmatize when we should be coming together as one city.”
“While those behind these ads only display their irresponsible intolerance, the rest of us who may be forced to view them can take comfort in the knowledge that we share a better, loftier and nobler view of humanity,” Klein said.
