http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/03/26/controversial-ads-to-appear-on-septa-buses/Beginning next week, the ads will appear on 84 SEPTA buses for four weeks.
The ads include images of Hitler and read “Islamic Jew Hatred: It’s in the Quran.”
And like it or not, the anti-Islamic ads are coming to SEPTA.
Thursday the transit authority said it would not appeal a federal court ruling that a New Hampshire based non-profit called American Freedom Defense Initiative or AFDI has a First Amendment right to run bus ads linking Muslims to Hitler.
SEPTA general counsel says there will be no more appeals because more court battles would be too costly and SEPTA has since revised its advertising policy.
“The new policy is a complete prohibition against any kind of political or public issue ads,” said SEPTA general counsel Gino Benedetti.
Earlier this month CBS 3 Eyewitness News spoke to the lawyer representing AFDI.
“There’s too much political correctness going on with particularly what’s going on in the Middle East and my client she speaks truth to power and that’s the whole point of these messages,” said attorney Robert Muise.
At a special SEPTA board meeting this afternoon members of the Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia commended SEPTA for its efforts to try and prevent the ads.
“This type of thing is also extremely distasteful to any thinking Jewish person,” said Muhammad Abdur-Razzaq Miller, Mosque of the Shaikh M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen.
“It is our hope as religious leaders that hate-filled messages will not be carried throughout the neighborhoods of Philadelphia,” said Rabbi David Ackerman, Rabbinical Assembly Mid-Atlantic Region.
SEPTA is also expecting its new policy to be challenged in the courts.
