New York's Transit Agency Bans Political Ads on Subways
The new policy takes effect immediately and prohibits any advertisement that is “political in nature.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority, America's largest mass transit system, has been at the center of a debate over free speech since last week when a Manhattan federal judge ruled that the agency's rejection of an anti-Islam poster’s publication on its subways and buses would breach First Amendment rights.
The campaign, sponsored by the pro-Israeli and anti-Muslim group American Freedom Defense Initiative, features an advertisement displaying the phrase "Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah," next to a picture of a man with a scarf across his face.
The transit authority had previously rejected the advertisement, arguing that it could be interpreted as a call to violence.
New York joins several other cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, which already have approved similar measures to ban political advertisements on public transit.
Advertisements sponsored by the same group have run in the transit systems of other U.S. cities, including Washington and Philadelphia.
In early April, a federal judge's decision ruled that Philadelphia buses must run advertisements in which Palestinian Muslim leader Hajj Amin al-Husseini is depicted chatting with Adolf Hitler under the headline, “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s in the Quran."
The incident prompted the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to revise its policy to allow it to reject these types of advertisements without violating the First Amendment.
Source: Turkish Weekly
