07-23-2008, 08:52 AM
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#1
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Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Manhatten
Posts: 1,324
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Islamic Ads on the NYC subway in September
Quote:
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Ads promoting Islam are to be placed on New York subway cars in September, but a U.S. congressman finds people sponsoring the messages unacceptable.
"I have no problem with the ad itself, but I have a very, very real problem with those behind it," Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, said Tuesday. He is urging the Metropolitan Transit Authority to reject the ads.
The campaign is to feature ads on 1,000 of the subway system's roughly 6,200 cars. The main sponsor is a grass-roots organization, Islamic Circle of North America.
The ads, simple black-and-white panels, will feature key words or phrases about Islam on one side of the panel such as "Head Scarf?" or "Prophet Muhammad?" and the words "You deserve to know" along with the Web site address WhyIslam.org on the other side.
Another of the backers of the advertising campaign -- which will launch in September to coincide with the monthlong Islamic holiday of Ramadan -- is Siraj Wahhaj, imam of a Brooklyn mosque.
Wahhaj was the first Muslim to lead a prayer before the House of Representatives, but King objects to him because he was a character witness for convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.
"He is a known Islamic extremist, and you would be giving him credibility and stature through a known government facility," said King, ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee.
Wahhaj also appeared on a list of 170 potential unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 bombing case. A prosecutor said that not everyone on the list was considered a co-conspirator.
On Monday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not join in King's outrage about the ads.
"If you were to advocate becoming a Muslim, I assume the First Amendment would protect you," he said.
But King, noting that the ads would be up during the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, said, "I'm calling on the MTA not to have these ads, not to go forward with them, and I don't see this as a free speech issue at all."
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If Wahhaj is really a suspect of the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center then I fully agree with King that these ads should not go up! |
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