Anti-Islam banner to go up on New York subway stops

NEW YORK

The banner. AP Photo

A banner likening Muslims to barbarians will soon be hung in New York subway stops following a court ruling that will permit the message to be displayed in public, the New York Post has reported.

The banner, which reads, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, defeat Jihad,” was funded by radical conservative blog writer Pamela Geller and will be put up at 10 different locations.

The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority had previously declined to put up the banner, after which Geller had applied to court.

Judge Paul Engelmayer ordered city authorities to put up the banner on grounds of freedom of speech.

A representative for the Metropolitan Transit Authority said they now had to put up the banner following the court ruling.

The same banner had been placed on buses in San Francisco through August and September and had raised concerns.

Several artists have asked the organizers to replace the word "Jihad" with "racism," but Geller refused.

The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) New York branch, Muneer Awad, said they recognized "freedom of speech issues and [Geller's] right to be a bigot and a racist" but wished New York authorities had denounced Geller's hate speech attempts. 

Geller is a co-founder of the "Stop Islamization of America" foundation which has been accused of being a hate group by international nongovernmental associations.