30 September 2014 - Anti-Islamic bus ads in New York
'Divisive' Anti-Islam Adverts Featuring Murdered Hostage James Foley Shown on New York Buses
Tom Porter (International Business Times)
A series of controversial anti-Islam adverts are being displayed on New York buses.
One features a picture of the masked Isis militant known as 'Jihadi John', who has decapitated three western hostages in online videos, alongside an image of London rapper Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, who some suspect is 'John'.
"Yesterday's moderate is today's headline," reads the caption.
The adverts are being run by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which has been accused of inciting hatred against Muslims.
The organization argues that it is merely exercising its First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, to pressurise Muslim communities to root out the extremists in their midst.
Read on...
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Context
Nicky Woolf (The Guardian)
Controversial blogger and activist Pamela Geller has paid $100,000 to place advertisements on New York City buses and in subway stations that feature anti-Islamic messages and images including one of James Foley, the American journalist beheaded by Isis in August.
The campaign, which is being funded by Geller’s advocacy group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AMDI), features six posters including the one that features Foley. All the posters carry messages critical of Islam. One features a picture of Adolf Hitler.
This is not the first time Geller’s organisation has used posters on New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority’s ad space to court controversy. In 2012, her organisation paid for posters to appear in ten New York subway stations.
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Reaction
Barbara Goldberg (The Chicago Tribune)
A photo of American journalist James Foley shortly before his beheading by the Islamic state militant group is being removed from anti-Islam advertisements appearing on Monday on 100 New York City buses and two subway stations.
In response to a complaint from the Foley family, the advertisement is being altered to include an unidentifiable severed head held by the masked militant seen wielding a knife in the video of Foley's beheading, said David Yerushalmi, lawyer for Pamela Geller, whose group is sponsoring the ads.
"The use of Mr. Foley's photo in your advertisement will cause profound distress to the Foley family," family lawyer J. Patrick Rowan said in a letter to Geller.
Read on...
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Local
Jennifer Fermino, Bill Hutchinson (The NY daily news)
Controversial firebrand blogger Pamela Geller has pulled an anti-Islam ad featuring American journalist James Foley on his knees just prior to his beheading.
The ads were to run on MTA buses and in subway stations, but Foley’s parents joined elected officials in denouncing the campaign and asked Geller not to go through with it.
The ads were scheduled to begin running on Monday in New York and San Francisco, but Geller buckled to the 11th-hour pressure.
Geller sent a letter to the Foleys’ attorney announcing the ads will no longer run.
“As a mother, and one who still feels the pain of the hideous murders of many in her extended family by the Nazis, and with friends in Israel brutally affected by Islamic terrorism as a constant of daily life, Ms. Geller understands and feels intimately the pain your clients are suffering,” reads the letter by Geller’s lawyer, David Yerushalmi.
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"30 September 2014 - Anti-Islamic bus ads in New York ", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), septembre 2014. Consulté le 13/09/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2014/30-september-2014-anti-islamic-bus-ads-in-new-york-