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Background: In 2008, I was in Florida covering Rifqa Bary’s court hearings to return her to her devout family who promised to kill to her because the teen had left Islam and converted to Christianity.
I was waiting on my ride to the courthouse when I saw this ad on a bus:
Thus began the very first of my many bus ad campaigns. I responded with this ad and the greatest putsch against free speech commenced:
Check out my latest at The Thinker:
After Ten Years, Court Strikes Down Ruling Banning Ads Offering Help to Those Leaving Islam
It took nearly twelve years, but we did it. My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has just won an important victory for the freedom of speech.
Back in 2009, the Detroit area’s SMART transit refused to run our AFDI ads offering help to people who were in fear for their lives for wanting to leave Islam or having left it. After an incredibly protracted court battle, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just stood up for the First Amendment and completely reversed the judgment banning our ads. It’s a total victory for freedom: we won our free speech lawsuit in Detroit by a unanimous decision.
Our ad read: “Leaving Islam? Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Got Questions? Get Answers! RefugefromIslam.com.” That’s all it said. It offered a life-saver for those who were completely and utterly alone with no system of support or help.
Islamic law mandates death for those who leave Islam; even in the United States, those who leave the religion live in fear that a devout Muslim might decide to apply this penalty. So we were offering help. That is all. But as Eugene Volokh explains at The Volokh Conspiracy, “Michigan’s Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) rejected this ad under two of its speech restrictions. The first prohibits ‘political’ ads; the second prohibits ads that would hold up a group of people to ‘scorn or ridicule.'”
Our ad was not political and didn’t scorn or ridicule anyone. It’s ridiculous to say saving lives is a political act, and so of course we won the initial case. The first judge who ruled on this case, Judge Denise Page Hood, understood the law and so ruled in favor of our free speech rights. She understood the First Amendment. Therefore, although she was clearly not sympathetic to us, she had to rule for us.
But then SMART appealed. SMART adamantly refused to run outreach ads that might have helped Muslims living in dangerous households and appealed to the notoriously leftist Sixth Circuit. You might have thought the Muslim Brotherhood was running SMART. It was astounding. And consider the fact that Detroit was bankrupt around this same time. Sharia adherence was still more important to the broken city’s failed leaders than were the freedom of speech and fiscal responsibility.
And so SMART continued to refuse our ads and appealed in the notoriously leftist Sixth Circuit. The court called our religious ads political and created a new narrative out of whole cloth. Our ads were never actually rejected on political grounds. Individually and in her official capacity, Beth Gibbons, marketing program manager of SMART, said our ads were rejected because they were controversial — not because they were political. It was always understood that these were religious ads. Gibbons testified that she saw “nothing about [the advertisement] itself that was political[.] … I knew that [the fatwa advertisement] was of concern in that there is controversy on both sides of the issue on whether they should be posted.” That was the position of SMART. In fact, that was the agency’s official testimony.
We in turn appealed. In 2013, I was deposed and harassed for six hours by a small, profane blowhard attorney — all billable hours to fight an ad created to help Muslim girls escape honor violence. And the deposition was so hostile that you would think I had committed a heinous crime. Apparently, blasphemy in America is.
The case dragged on and on. But now, in American Freedom Defensive Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Regional Transp. (6th Cir.), the court makes the correct ruling, noting that “the Free Speech Clause limits the government’s power to regulate speech on public property. The government has little leeway to restrict speech in ‘public forums.'” Accordingly, “SMART’s ban on ‘political’ ads is unreasonable for the same reason that a state’s ban on ‘political’ apparel at polling places is unreasonable: SMART offers no ‘sensible basis for distinguishing what may come in from what must stay out.’ Likewise, SMART’s ban on ads that engage in ‘scorn or ridicule’ is not viewpoint neutral for the same reason that a ban on trademarks that disparage people is not viewpoint neutral: For any group, ‘an applicant may [display] a positive or benign [ad] but not a derogatory one.'” Consequently, the court declared: “We thus reverse the district court’s decision rejecting the First Amendment challenge to these two restrictions.”
This is all common-sensical and clear even to those with no legal training or experience, but it has taken an incredibly long time to get here. The American Freedom Law Center, whose ace lawyers David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise fought long and hard to win this case, noted: “AFDI’s religious freedom advertisement was rejected even though SMART had no problem accepting and running an anti-religion ad sponsored by an atheist organization. That approved ad stated, ‘Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.'” However, now “the Sixth Circuit ruled unanimously in favor of AFLC, finding that SMART’s rejection of the ad was unreasonable and [a] viewpoint based in violation of the First Amendment. This is a final ruling.”
Bottom line: Everyone has the same right to a free life. The Sixth Circuit agreed.
If you weren’t reading this, you would likely never know that it had happened at all. No media covered it. If we had lost, then you would have heard about it, because the media would have been popping open bottles of champagne and running huge pieces on how sharia restrictions on speech are altogether reasonable — as heads roll (literally).
Jessica Mokdad, an honor killing victim living in that area at the time, might have been saved. We know that the ads have helped Muslims — they told us. The ads save lives. Contribute here.
Pamela Geller is the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report, and author of the bestselling book FATWA: Hunted in America as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Officials who oversee Seattle’s transit system moved to ban political, religious, and other ads from its facilities and public transportation vehicles soon after Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) prevailed in a freedom of speech lawsuit against the city, earning the right to run FBI’s Most Wanted terrorist posters, Breitbart News has learned.
“People should realize that this is a struggle for the very foundation of any free society: the freedom of speech. If there is a group you can’t criticize, then that group can impose tyranny over you. If we lose this free speech battle, all our other freedoms are lost” Geller recently told Breitbart News via email.
She argued the advertisement ban sidestepped the September 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling in AFDI’s favor, which allowed the group to advertise the Most Wanted terrorist list in Seattle.
However, the new restrictions, dubbed the “Geller ban” and instituted in December 2018 by the King County Department of Transportation’s Transit Division that oversees Seattle’s public transportation system, have ended up preventing AFDI from running the terrorist wanted ads, Geller pointed out, noting that her free speech lawsuit victory was bittersweet.
Before the appeal court’s ruling, judges had denied AFDI the right to place public service ads featuring images of the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists on Seattle’s public transportation system, due to a perceived disparagement of Islam.
The city’s rejection prompted AFDI to sue the King County Metro system for its suppression of free speech.
“We won the right to run the FBI wanted terrorist poster that Seattle prevailed upon the FBI to withdraw [ in 2013]. And as soon as we triumphed, Seattle transit imposed the infamous Geller ban, banning political, religious and cause-related ads in Seattle (following NY, Washington DC, Boston, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, etc),” Geller told Breitbart News in the email.
In a document outlining the transit agency’s advertising restrictions, King County officials noted that the policy bans advertising on transit facilities and vehicles that fall within the categories of political, religious, government (except for the county’s), and other forms of “speech.”
“They banned all political ads, as that was the only course of action they could possibly take in order to continue to avoid running my ads,” Geller said. “They’re so determined to continue whitewashing Islam and denying and obfuscating the roots of jihad terror that they are willing to lose immense amounts of revenue from all political advertising.”
Transit agency officials argued that their “viewpoint neutral” ban seeks to prohibit “advertisements that interfere with and divert resources from transit operations, that detract from transit purposes by creating substantial controversy, and/or that pose significant risks of harm, inconvenience, or annoyance to transit passengers, operators, and vehicles.”
“Such advertisements create an environment that is not conducive to achieving increased revenue for the benefit of the transit system or to preserving and enhancing the security, safety, comfort, and convenience of its operations,” the officials added.
Responding to the agency’s argument Geller noted, “I see ads that annoy me all the time. If that is the criterion [for the ban], whose annoyance counts, and whose doesn’t, and why?”
She told Breitbart News that King County’s decision to ban FBI wanted posters featuring some jihadis amounts to the “enforcement of Sharia blasphemy law in another American city.”
King County officials described the transit agency’s advertising ban as“restrictions” that “foster the maintenance of a professional advertising environment that maximizes advertising, revenue, and protects the interests of the captive audience that uses Metro’s transit services.”
In other words, the county’s transportation department believes that banning certain ads will allow the county to generate more revenue.
“The ban will, obviously, drastically curtail their ad revenues. To argue otherwise is plain deception” Geller noted.
Nevertheless, the county asserted that the advertising policy intends to fulfill the following goals:
Maximizing advertising revenue; maintaining a position of neutrality and preventing the appearance of favoritism or endorsement by the county; preventing the risk of imposing objectionable, inappropriate or harmful view on a captive audience; preserving the value of the advertising space; maximizing ridership and maintaining a safe environment for transit customers and other members of the public; avoiding claims of discrimination and maintaining a non-discriminatory environment for riders; preventing any harm or abuse that may result from running objectionable, inappropriate, or harmful advertisements; [and] reducing the diversion of resources from transit operations that is caused by objectionable, inappropriate or harmful advertisements.
Geller vowed to keep fighting for free speech all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary to ensure Seattle upholds the appeal court’s ruling.
Pamela Geller: Dallas Billboard Company Refuses My Ad Offering Help to At-Risk Muslim Girls
Mark Lennihan/AP; Insets: ICNA, Pamela Geller
It is quickly becoming impossible to criticize any aspect of Islam, no matter how violent or repressive, in the public square. My latest billboard battle is a case in point.
A month ago, a number of concerned Texans wrote me about a hijab promotion campaign on Outfront (previously known as CBS Outdoor) billboards running in Dallas. Local media wrote it up in glowing terms, of course.
KERA News ran a puff piece with the enthusiastic headline “Billboard Campaign In Dallas Aims To Dispel Misconceptions About Islam And The Hijab.” It featured a large photo of the billboard itself, which read “Respect – Honor – Strength. HIJAB. The Dress of Modesty.” It also offered a phone number for those with “questions about Islam and women.” Not a word, of course, about the many girls and women who have been threatened and even killed for not wearing the hijab in a practice commonly known as “honor killing.” This ad’s use of the word “honor” is especially cynical.
And then, of course, comes the post-ad followup describing horrific responses to the ad. The New York Post just ran yet another Muslims-are-victims-of-Islamophobia piece: “Muslim call center gets hundreds of hate calls for promoting hijabs on billboard.”
American media companies run these ads without hesitation, for fear of violating Islamic mores and traditions and appearing “Islamophobic” — a thought-crushing device designed to silence criticism of Islam, thereby enforcing sharia. The ads garner media attention, paint Muslims as victims, admonish Americans for things they haven’t done, and decry a non-existent epidemic of Islamophobia.
This billboard is the handiwork of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Neither KERA News nor any other news outlet that ran glowing coverage of this billboard bothered to mention that ICNA, according to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, and a report by Discover the Networks, is linked to radial Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-Sharia organization from which Hamas and al-Qaeda come.
Says Emerson: “The ICNA’s hatred of the Jews is so fierce that it taunted them with a repetition of what Hitler did to them… The ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia.”
ICNA’s January 2019 conference, with 20,000 attendees, featured a disquieting roster of participants and speakers with extremist views on slavery, homosexuality and Jews.
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), on the other hand, is a human rights group dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and individual rights. We have been targeted for death multiple times and escaped death in recent assassination attempts because of our work in defense of freedom.
AFDI submitted an ad to run on Dallas billboards right next to ICNA’s hijab “honor and respect” ad. But as of this writing, I have had to revise the ad over a dozen times to comply with Outfront (CBS) Outdoor’s constantly changing ad policy.
The first ad I submitted featured photos of a number of Muslim girls who were honor-murdered by their families for refusing to wear the hijab. Above the photos was the legend, “Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab,” and underneath, “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you? We can help. Go to FightforFreedom.us.”
Outdoor wouldn’t allow that; its General Manager Zack Danielson wrote me: “Good morning. I just received word that we cannot accept this copy due to the top tag line ‘Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab’. Is there any way you all can remove that line and leave everything else as is? Thank you.”
I responded: “But they were honor murdered by their families because they did not want to wear hijab – they wanted to be free. If I take that line out nobody understands who those girls are and by the way there from America and Canada. So what would be acceptable? ‘Honor killed by their families’ Would that work?”
To that, Senior Account Executive Sammy Tamporello replied: “I understand what you are saying, but as mentioned below whether I agree or not ultimately I cannot post creative that goes against our companies [sic] policy/approval process. Anything with the killed, murdered, or type of violence is not going to get approved.”
So I changed the top line to “Muslim Girls Who Refused the Hijab – R.I.P.” Tamporello responded: “Thanks for your assistance. If you all can eliminate the RIP, we will be good to go and I can send over the contract.” I said: “Sammy, I cannot eliminate the RIP – those girls are dead. How else would you have me convey that message? How about, ‘Rest in peace.’” Then I sent in a new ad reading: “In Memory of the Muslim Girls Who Refused Hijab.”
That was refused as well. Tamporello wrote: “Our corporate office just informed me that the top line needs to be removed or needs to not include a ‘death reference’ i.e. In Memory, RIP, or Condolences, etc.”
Then I wrote: “Sammy, Can you explain how Outfront is running a campaign promoting the hijab but refuses to allow a campaign offering help to Muslim girls who don’t want to wear the hijab? Why? Why would Outftont take sides against freedom in Texas of all places. What wording would Outfront if not in memoriam? Is there a decision maker I can speak with?” To that, Zack Danielson wrote: “We are happy to seek approval for your campaign with a message that is positive in nature. If you would like to send me the revised creative I would be happy to pass it along to our legal team.”
I answered: “Zack, Isn’t the message positive? We offer sanctuary to girls whose life is in dangerous. Saving a life. What could be more positive than that?” Danielson responded: “How about offering a positive message that speaks to that exactly, with a tagline that reads: We offer a sanctuary to young woman / girls who may feel that there life is in danger.” Note that in Danielson’s “positive” ad, all reference to the girls being in danger because they refused to wear hijab was removed.
This is in Texas, where Amina and Sarah Said were honor-murdered in cold blood by their father, according to police. But we can’t talk about it. Nothing remotely critical of Islam can be discussed.
Finally, I submitted an ad reading: “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you?” And underneath the photos: “These girls could have been saved.”
To that updated submission, Outdoor has not yet responded.
Our ad is a public service announcement, and public service ads offering help to women threatened by domestic violence run all the time. But when it comes to the cause of Islamic honor, suddenly we must be “positive” and show “respect.”
We’re not going to let these appeasers and useful idiots stop us.
Background: In 2008, I was in Florida covering Rifqa Bary’s court hearings to return her to her devout family who promised to kill to her because the teen had left Islam and converted to Christianity.
I was waiting on my ride to the courthouse when I saw this ad on a bus:
Thus began the very first of my many bus ad campaigns. I responded with this ad and the greatest putsch against free speech commenced:
Check out my latest at The Thinker:
After Ten Years, Court Strikes Down Ruling Banning Ads Offering Help to Those Leaving Islam
It took nearly twelve years, but we did it. My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has just won an important victory for the freedom of speech.
Back in 2009, the Detroit area’s SMART transit refused to run our AFDI ads offering help to people who were in fear for their lives for wanting to leave Islam or having left it. After an incredibly protracted court battle, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just stood up for the First Amendment and completely reversed the judgment banning our ads. It’s a total victory for freedom: we won our free speech lawsuit in Detroit by a unanimous decision.
Our ad read: “Leaving Islam? Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Got Questions? Get Answers! RefugefromIslam.com.” That’s all it said. It offered a life-saver for those who were completely and utterly alone with no system of support or help.
Islamic law mandates death for those who leave Islam; even in the United States, those who leave the religion live in fear that a devout Muslim might decide to apply this penalty. So we were offering help. That is all. But as Eugene Volokh explains at The Volokh Conspiracy, “Michigan’s Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) rejected this ad under two of its speech restrictions. The first prohibits ‘political’ ads; the second prohibits ads that would hold up a group of people to ‘scorn or ridicule.'”
Our ad was not political and didn’t scorn or ridicule anyone. It’s ridiculous to say saving lives is a political act, and so of course we won the initial case. The first judge who ruled on this case, Judge Denise Page Hood, understood the law and so ruled in favor of our free speech rights. She understood the First Amendment. Therefore, although she was clearly not sympathetic to us, she had to rule for us.
But then SMART appealed. SMART adamantly refused to run outreach ads that might have helped Muslims living in dangerous households and appealed to the notoriously leftist Sixth Circuit. You might have thought the Muslim Brotherhood was running SMART. It was astounding. And consider the fact that Detroit was bankrupt around this same time. Sharia adherence was still more important to the broken city’s failed leaders than were the freedom of speech and fiscal responsibility.
And so SMART continued to refuse our ads and appealed in the notoriously leftist Sixth Circuit. The court called our religious ads political and created a new narrative out of whole cloth. Our ads were never actually rejected on political grounds. Individually and in her official capacity, Beth Gibbons, marketing program manager of SMART, said our ads were rejected because they were controversial — not because they were political. It was always understood that these were religious ads. Gibbons testified that she saw “nothing about [the advertisement] itself that was political[.] … I knew that [the fatwa advertisement] was of concern in that there is controversy on both sides of the issue on whether they should be posted.” That was the position of SMART. In fact, that was the agency’s official testimony.
We in turn appealed. In 2013, I was deposed and harassed for six hours by a small, profane blowhard attorney — all billable hours to fight an ad created to help Muslim girls escape honor violence. And the deposition was so hostile that you would think I had committed a heinous crime. Apparently, blasphemy in America is.
The case dragged on and on. But now, in American Freedom Defensive Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Regional Transp. (6th Cir.), the court makes the correct ruling, noting that “the Free Speech Clause limits the government’s power to regulate speech on public property. The government has little leeway to restrict speech in ‘public forums.'” Accordingly, “SMART’s ban on ‘political’ ads is unreasonable for the same reason that a state’s ban on ‘political’ apparel at polling places is unreasonable: SMART offers no ‘sensible basis for distinguishing what may come in from what must stay out.’ Likewise, SMART’s ban on ads that engage in ‘scorn or ridicule’ is not viewpoint neutral for the same reason that a ban on trademarks that disparage people is not viewpoint neutral: For any group, ‘an applicant may [display] a positive or benign [ad] but not a derogatory one.'” Consequently, the court declared: “We thus reverse the district court’s decision rejecting the First Amendment challenge to these two restrictions.”
This is all common-sensical and clear even to those with no legal training or experience, but it has taken an incredibly long time to get here. The American Freedom Law Center, whose ace lawyers David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise fought long and hard to win this case, noted: “AFDI’s religious freedom advertisement was rejected even though SMART had no problem accepting and running an anti-religion ad sponsored by an atheist organization. That approved ad stated, ‘Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.'” However, now “the Sixth Circuit ruled unanimously in favor of AFLC, finding that SMART’s rejection of the ad was unreasonable and [a] viewpoint based in violation of the First Amendment. This is a final ruling.”
Bottom line: Everyone has the same right to a free life. The Sixth Circuit agreed.
If you weren’t reading this, you would likely never know that it had happened at all. No media covered it. If we had lost, then you would have heard about it, because the media would have been popping open bottles of champagne and running huge pieces on how sharia restrictions on speech are altogether reasonable — as heads roll (literally).
Jessica Mokdad, an honor killing victim living in that area at the time, might have been saved. We know that the ads have helped Muslims — they told us. The ads save lives. Contribute here.
Pamela Geller is the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report, and author of the bestselling book FATWA: Hunted in America as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Officials who oversee Seattle’s transit system moved to ban political, religious, and other ads from its facilities and public transportation vehicles soon after Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) prevailed in a freedom of speech lawsuit against the city, earning the right to run FBI’s Most Wanted terrorist posters, Breitbart News has learned.
“People should realize that this is a struggle for the very foundation of any free society: the freedom of speech. If there is a group you can’t criticize, then that group can impose tyranny over you. If we lose this free speech battle, all our other freedoms are lost” Geller recently told Breitbart News via email.
She argued the advertisement ban sidestepped the September 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling in AFDI’s favor, which allowed the group to advertise the Most Wanted terrorist list in Seattle.
However, the new restrictions, dubbed the “Geller ban” and instituted in December 2018 by the King County Department of Transportation’s Transit Division that oversees Seattle’s public transportation system, have ended up preventing AFDI from running the terrorist wanted ads, Geller pointed out, noting that her free speech lawsuit victory was bittersweet.
Before the appeal court’s ruling, judges had denied AFDI the right to place public service ads featuring images of the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists on Seattle’s public transportation system, due to a perceived disparagement of Islam.
The city’s rejection prompted AFDI to sue the King County Metro system for its suppression of free speech.
“We won the right to run the FBI wanted terrorist poster that Seattle prevailed upon the FBI to withdraw [ in 2013]. And as soon as we triumphed, Seattle transit imposed the infamous Geller ban, banning political, religious and cause-related ads in Seattle (following NY, Washington DC, Boston, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, etc),” Geller told Breitbart News in the email.
In a document outlining the transit agency’s advertising restrictions, King County officials noted that the policy bans advertising on transit facilities and vehicles that fall within the categories of political, religious, government (except for the county’s), and other forms of “speech.”
“They banned all political ads, as that was the only course of action they could possibly take in order to continue to avoid running my ads,” Geller said. “They’re so determined to continue whitewashing Islam and denying and obfuscating the roots of jihad terror that they are willing to lose immense amounts of revenue from all political advertising.”
Transit agency officials argued that their “viewpoint neutral” ban seeks to prohibit “advertisements that interfere with and divert resources from transit operations, that detract from transit purposes by creating substantial controversy, and/or that pose significant risks of harm, inconvenience, or annoyance to transit passengers, operators, and vehicles.”
“Such advertisements create an environment that is not conducive to achieving increased revenue for the benefit of the transit system or to preserving and enhancing the security, safety, comfort, and convenience of its operations,” the officials added.
Responding to the agency’s argument Geller noted, “I see ads that annoy me all the time. If that is the criterion [for the ban], whose annoyance counts, and whose doesn’t, and why?”
She told Breitbart News that King County’s decision to ban FBI wanted posters featuring some jihadis amounts to the “enforcement of Sharia blasphemy law in another American city.”
King County officials described the transit agency’s advertising ban as“restrictions” that “foster the maintenance of a professional advertising environment that maximizes advertising, revenue, and protects the interests of the captive audience that uses Metro’s transit services.”
In other words, the county’s transportation department believes that banning certain ads will allow the county to generate more revenue.
“The ban will, obviously, drastically curtail their ad revenues. To argue otherwise is plain deception” Geller noted.
Nevertheless, the county asserted that the advertising policy intends to fulfill the following goals:
Maximizing advertising revenue; maintaining a position of neutrality and preventing the appearance of favoritism or endorsement by the county; preventing the risk of imposing objectionable, inappropriate or harmful view on a captive audience; preserving the value of the advertising space; maximizing ridership and maintaining a safe environment for transit customers and other members of the public; avoiding claims of discrimination and maintaining a non-discriminatory environment for riders; preventing any harm or abuse that may result from running objectionable, inappropriate, or harmful advertisements; [and] reducing the diversion of resources from transit operations that is caused by objectionable, inappropriate or harmful advertisements.
Geller vowed to keep fighting for free speech all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary to ensure Seattle upholds the appeal court’s ruling.
Pamela Geller: Dallas Billboard Company Refuses My Ad Offering Help to At-Risk Muslim Girls
Mark Lennihan/AP; Insets: ICNA, Pamela Geller
It is quickly becoming impossible to criticize any aspect of Islam, no matter how violent or repressive, in the public square. My latest billboard battle is a case in point.
A month ago, a number of concerned Texans wrote me about a hijab promotion campaign on Outfront (previously known as CBS Outdoor) billboards running in Dallas. Local media wrote it up in glowing terms, of course.
KERA News ran a puff piece with the enthusiastic headline “Billboard Campaign In Dallas Aims To Dispel Misconceptions About Islam And The Hijab.” It featured a large photo of the billboard itself, which read “Respect – Honor – Strength. HIJAB. The Dress of Modesty.” It also offered a phone number for those with “questions about Islam and women.” Not a word, of course, about the many girls and women who have been threatened and even killed for not wearing the hijab in a practice commonly known as “honor killing.” This ad’s use of the word “honor” is especially cynical.
And then, of course, comes the post-ad followup describing horrific responses to the ad. The New York Post just ran yet another Muslims-are-victims-of-Islamophobia piece: “Muslim call center gets hundreds of hate calls for promoting hijabs on billboard.”
American media companies run these ads without hesitation, for fear of violating Islamic mores and traditions and appearing “Islamophobic” — a thought-crushing device designed to silence criticism of Islam, thereby enforcing sharia. The ads garner media attention, paint Muslims as victims, admonish Americans for things they haven’t done, and decry a non-existent epidemic of Islamophobia.
This billboard is the handiwork of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Neither KERA News nor any other news outlet that ran glowing coverage of this billboard bothered to mention that ICNA, according to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, and a report by Discover the Networks, is linked to radial Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-Sharia organization from which Hamas and al-Qaeda come.
Says Emerson: “The ICNA’s hatred of the Jews is so fierce that it taunted them with a repetition of what Hitler did to them… The ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia.”
ICNA’s January 2019 conference, with 20,000 attendees, featured a disquieting roster of participants and speakers with extremist views on slavery, homosexuality and Jews.
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), on the other hand, is a human rights group dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and individual rights. We have been targeted for death multiple times and escaped death in recent assassination attempts because of our work in defense of freedom.
AFDI submitted an ad to run on Dallas billboards right next to ICNA’s hijab “honor and respect” ad. But as of this writing, I have had to revise the ad over a dozen times to comply with Outfront (CBS) Outdoor’s constantly changing ad policy.
The first ad I submitted featured photos of a number of Muslim girls who were honor-murdered by their families for refusing to wear the hijab. Above the photos was the legend, “Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab,” and underneath, “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you? We can help. Go to FightforFreedom.us.”
Outdoor wouldn’t allow that; its General Manager Zack Danielson wrote me: “Good morning. I just received word that we cannot accept this copy due to the top tag line ‘Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab’. Is there any way you all can remove that line and leave everything else as is? Thank you.”
I responded: “But they were honor murdered by their families because they did not want to wear hijab – they wanted to be free. If I take that line out nobody understands who those girls are and by the way there from America and Canada. So what would be acceptable? ‘Honor killed by their families’ Would that work?”
To that, Senior Account Executive Sammy Tamporello replied: “I understand what you are saying, but as mentioned below whether I agree or not ultimately I cannot post creative that goes against our companies [sic] policy/approval process. Anything with the killed, murdered, or type of violence is not going to get approved.”
So I changed the top line to “Muslim Girls Who Refused the Hijab – R.I.P.” Tamporello responded: “Thanks for your assistance. If you all can eliminate the RIP, we will be good to go and I can send over the contract.” I said: “Sammy, I cannot eliminate the RIP – those girls are dead. How else would you have me convey that message? How about, ‘Rest in peace.’” Then I sent in a new ad reading: “In Memory of the Muslim Girls Who Refused Hijab.”
That was refused as well. Tamporello wrote: “Our corporate office just informed me that the top line needs to be removed or needs to not include a ‘death reference’ i.e. In Memory, RIP, or Condolences, etc.”
Then I wrote: “Sammy, Can you explain how Outfront is running a campaign promoting the hijab but refuses to allow a campaign offering help to Muslim girls who don’t want to wear the hijab? Why? Why would Outftont take sides against freedom in Texas of all places. What wording would Outfront if not in memoriam? Is there a decision maker I can speak with?” To that, Zack Danielson wrote: “We are happy to seek approval for your campaign with a message that is positive in nature. If you would like to send me the revised creative I would be happy to pass it along to our legal team.”
I answered: “Zack, Isn’t the message positive? We offer sanctuary to girls whose life is in dangerous. Saving a life. What could be more positive than that?” Danielson responded: “How about offering a positive message that speaks to that exactly, with a tagline that reads: We offer a sanctuary to young woman / girls who may feel that there life is in danger.” Note that in Danielson’s “positive” ad, all reference to the girls being in danger because they refused to wear hijab was removed.
This is in Texas, where Amina and Sarah Said were honor-murdered in cold blood by their father, according to police. But we can’t talk about it. Nothing remotely critical of Islam can be discussed.
Finally, I submitted an ad reading: “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you?” And underneath the photos: “These girls could have been saved.”
To that updated submission, Outdoor has not yet responded.
Our ad is a public service announcement, and public service ads offering help to women threatened by domestic violence run all the time. But when it comes to the cause of Islamic honor, suddenly we must be “positive” and show “respect.”
We’re not going to let these appeasers and useful idiots stop us.
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