Yahoo News has it:
NEW YORK, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority on Monday dropped its restrictions on the free speech of the human rights organization American Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). MTA officials reversed an earlier decision not to allow FDI bus ads that pointed out the link between the September 11, 2001 jihad terror attacks and the proposed Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.FDI Executive Director Pamela Geller announced: "The MTA has recognized the justice of our position in our lawsuit, and has agreed to run our ad as originally submitted. This is a great victory for freedom of speech, and we are grateful to our attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise for mounting such an effective defense against politically correct censorship."
Responding to charges that the ad is offensive, Geller said: "What's more insulting and offensive -- that image of truth, or a 15 story mega-mosque looking down on the sacred ground of Ground Zero?"
The MTA reversal came after FDI filed a lawsuit on Friday, August 6, against the city of New York for infringement of the freedom of speech, after the MTA refused to run FDI's "Preservation of Ground Zero" bus campaign.
The MTA claimed that it refused the campaign because it contained a "9/11 image," specifically "a plane," and associated the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque slated to be built at Ground Zero with the September 11, 2001 jihad terror attacks - an association that the mosque organizers have themselves made many times.
The full text of FDI's complaint is here.
In July, FDI Executive Director Pamela Geller signed a contract with CBS Outdoor to run a "Preservation of Ground Zero" bus ad campaign. FDI paid for the campaign in full.
The ad FDI submitted depicted one of the planes about to crash into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 on one side, with the planned mega-mosque (which recalls the World Trade Center in its design) on the other. The inscription was "Why There?"
CBS Outdoor relayed that the MTA had refused the ad. A CBS Outdoor representative explained that "images of 9/11" were not allowed. He told Geller that the ad could not show an airplane about to crash into one of the Twin Towers; a later version of the ad was also rejected for showing smoke and fire behind the Towers.
A third version of the ad with the flames and smoke removed and the Twin Towers depicted in pristine condition was also rejected, as a plane was shown flying by some distance away.
Geller's repeated requests for a copy of the MTA's guidelines for bus advertising went unanswered.
CBS Outdoor's representative also told Geller that the MTA didn't want to "associate the new building" - that is, the Islamic supremacist Ground Zero mega-mosque - "with Ground Zero." He told Geller: "The people behind the new building" -- again, the Ground Zero mega-mosque - "say it has nothing to do with Ground Zero."
However, Daisy Khan, wife of the Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has said: "I think the building came to us, which goes to show that there is a symbolism there, and that there's a divine hand in it. That it's so close to the tragedy, that its close proximity is very symbolic for the fact that we really want to reverse what happened on 9/11."
Thus mosque organizers themselves have linked the building to 9/11, yet the MTA forbade FDI to make the same link.
Geller asked: "What do they (the Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan) have to do with running my ad? They dictate what can and cannot run? I object to this censorship, which is effectively editing the viewpoint I am attempting to express in my message."
Yerushalmi and Muise filed suit on behalf of FDI, Geller, and FDI Associate Director Robert Spencer. The complaint alleged violation of FDI's, Geller's and Spencer's free speech rights. It charged that the MTA had decided to accept the claim of the pro-Sharia Ground Zero Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, that their mega-mosque has nothing to do with marking the jihadist "victory" of September 11, 2001. In other words, the MTA was putting itself in the position of deciding which viewpoints were politically correct enough to appear on its buses.
On Monday, Yerushalmi hailed the MTA's reversal: "This is a victory not just as a defense of the First Amendment, but also a victory against the Bloomberg-style bullying meant to shut down full-throated public debate over the connection between the existential jihad threat this country faces and Islamic terrorists who engage in both violent and stealth jihad to impose Sharia on the infidel."
FDI/SIOA is one of America's foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.
View images of the rejected ads here.
Join SIOA's Facebook page here.
Great! So, what caused the Dhimmis' to capitulate? The lawsuit filed by David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise?
Great! We all owe Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer a deep debt of gratitude.
Speaking of symbolism, is there another Moslem building in America as large? The sheer heft of the proposed structure speaks volumes.
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The so-called "community center" dimension of the Ground Zero Megamosque is to let Moslimas take part in the victory celebration. They can't go into the mosque proper, so they need other spaces to inhabit, say a child care center for toddlers.
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Like the child care center in the Murrah Federal Building, before it was blown to smithereens by McVeigh, Nichols and at least a half dozen Iraquis, Lebs and other Moslems who funded and oversaw the operation.
"and other Moslems who funded and oversaw the operation"
Could you elaborate on that? I'd like to have it in my verbal arsenal the next time I see the idiocy that McVeigh was a Christian.
Terrific news! Keep "offending" Islam with the truth. The truth will set us free!
"CBS Outdoor relayed that the MTA had refused the ad. A CBS Outdoor representative explained that "images of 9/11" were not allowed. He told Geller that the ad could not show an airplane about to crash into one of the Twin Towers; a later version of the ad was also rejected for showing smoke and fire behind the Towers."
The funny thing is, if this were to happen in a movie or a book of some sort of dystopian future, an incident like this would be immediately understood by the audience to be indicative of an attempt at erasing the event in question from history (in this case, the jihad attack of the WTC itself).
Will the audience see this IRL?
Imagine CAIR as Snidley Whiplash and FDI/SOIA as Dudley DoRight -
CAIR - Your bus ads offend Muslims!
FDI/SOIA - What about the First Amendment?
CAIR - Curses! Foiled again!
Could you elaborate on that?
Read The Third Terrorist by Jayna Alexander. Her book lays out a convincing case that Murrah was funded by Saddam Hussein, or at least some other foreign Moslem, and her heavily documented case has never been refuted.
Or google her name and "12 question" which should lead you to a laundry list she issued after being accused by the MSM of being a conspiracy theorist.
Nobody ever answered the questions.
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To accept the case the Feds made against McVeigh and Nichols, one would have to be an "anti-conspiracy theorist," if there is such a term.
SIOA: NYC's MTA Drops Restrictions on Free Speech, Allows Bus Ads Linking 9/11 to Ground Zero Mosque
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Excellent news!
More:
Responding to charges that the ad is offensive, Geller said: "What's more insulting and offensive -- that image of truth, or a 15 story mega-mosque looking down on the sacred ground of Ground Zero?"
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This is why I love Pamela Geller!
More:
The MTA claimed that it refused the campaign because it contained a "9/11 image," specifically "a plane," and associated the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque slated to be built at Ground Zero with the September 11, 2001 jihad terror attacks - an association that the mosque organizers have themselves made many times.
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Well, this is mind-numbingly literal—this is like objecting to a reference to child pornography—in an article *against child pornography*.
More:
The ad FDI submitted depicted one of the planes about to crash into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 on one side, with the planned mega-mosque (which recalls the World Trade Center in its design)
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Thank you. From the first time I saw the design for the proposed Ground Zero victory mosque, I thought it looked too much like the Twin Towers for coincidence—especially since the pure modernist box is generally considered a bit passe right now.
I think the visual reference is quite clear—but this is the first reference to this I have read.
When losers know they will lose a lawsuit, they back up...
But they are still losers...
God bless you, Pamela and Robert!
Copenhagen (great part of it, anyway) loves you.
I am sending 50 bucks in a minute.
The MTA finally comes to the right decision based on our laws. Though it had to be nudged along by a lawsuit.
So what's taking the federal judge (Denise Hood) out in Detroit so long to rule on SOIA's request for a TRO for ads which convey other truthful messages about Islam? (The Muslims simply do not like it when uncomfortable truths about Islam hit the daylight. And it especially annoys them when we kuffirs know them.)
Likely she's trying to craft some sort of justification, acceptable to the hair-trigger Muslim temper but just shy of the law, that allows the First Amendment to be suspended when the Muslim population exceeds a magical percentage. Now of course this is a black-and-white issue and SOIA is dead-right on the issue and this TWO decision is really a no-brainer, so much so that this judge should have ruled right from the bench at the end of the July hearing. But this delay in the enjoyment of SOIA of its First Amendment freedom suggests that this judge is deep into the process of introducting "nuances." In short, she is likely trying to find, conjure up, an elusive way to weasel her way out from making this easy legal, but politically-incorrect decision.
Com'n judge, do your job!
excellent!
Thank you Robert and Pamela! I have been reading your sites for a couple years, and I have also watched the public homage that are due you two continually rise--way to go America! Pam and Robert are America's torchbearers in this surmountable threat of sharia and stealth sharia law rising up in America.
It's a nice ad.
It'll look great on the buses; but I think it would also make an excellent bumper-sticker for the use of the general public.
Please?
Run off a test batch and see how they sell. Have them available at the SIOA 9/11 protest rally.
I can think of nothing better than a few hundred thousand or, down the track a little, a few *million* of such stickers whizzing along suburban roads and highways *all over America*...and popping up in other places, too, such as Australia and Canada.
Cut the chase Islam is a cult and they want to mack an Islamic cult base in NYC , what can I say exsept that if we could not unit and stand in front of this kind of people this country is lost, and the constitution is made to protect the country not to be the cause of down fall of it, those people do not know a thing about freedom of religion look inside their Owen country is a big lie , and Obama will always be remembered that he is the only American who bend and kiss ass an Arab
In the spirit of entrepreneural tolerance I would like to suggest to May Bloomberg, imam rauf and hamass that they show their dedication to tolerance by allowing a new business to adjoin the proposed new mosque. I am proposing a gay bar that serves BBQ'd ribs be allowed to operate as a thriving business next door to this muslim symbol of brotherly tolerance and enlightenment.....all those in favor say aye.
The imam rauf is also a noted bridge builder according to our UN-Credentialed leader and has sent him on a tax paid mission to enhance our standing in the muslim world. He could negotiate another bridge to peace and tolerance if the site at mecca would allow a Jewish Temple and a Chiristian Church to built on either side of it. You know there is nothing better than peaceful competition to promote the betterment of mankind.