New Yorkers Plaster 'Racist' Stickers Over Islamophobic Subway Ads

Stickers appeared on ads paid for by the American
Freedom Defense Initiative. (photo: IMEU)

By Ben Armbruster, Think Progress

26 September 12

fter the anti-American protests erupted in the Middle East earlier this month, Pam Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) decided to re-up its anti-Muslim ad campaign in New York’s subway system. The ad, borrowing from an Ayn Rand quote, is meant to imply that Muslims are savages.

New York City transit authorities did not want to display the ads but a federal court said refusing the ads would violate AFDI’s First Amendment rights. But now that the ads are up, New Yorkers are taking matters into their own hands, writing “RACIST” and “HATE SPEECH” over the ads in certain subway stations:

AFDI is trying to run a similar campaign in the Washington DC Metro but authorities there have so far been successful at blocking the campaign “out of a concern for public safety.” READ MORE