WCBSTV reports: After being linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks, a Brooklyn imam has a new target – subway ads explaining the true meaning of Islam.
Siraj Wahhaj, once a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheikh now doing life for plotting to blow up the world trade center in 1993, was also linked by the feds to a plan to blow up city landmarks. Now he’s behind a controversial subway ad campaign pushing Islam.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the ads, which will begin in September on 1,000 subway cars, are just fine. A committee reviewed them for obscenity and gave the green light.
“There was nothing. There were no objections raised to this ad and of course we have to adhere to the first amendment and there’s very little that we can do,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.
The subway project Islamic Circle of North America will run the ads. Imam Wahhaj wants subway riders to learn more about his religion.
“Every day in this city some 4.9 million people ride the subways. That is a lot of people,” he said. “Imagine people sitting on a subway, people sitting there, standing there — what are they thinking about, what are they doing?”
The group apparently hopes riders will start to think of Islam when they see the ads.
(Source: CBS2 HD)
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One Response
Nothing the MTA can do? Really, now. I recall that not too many years ago the NYC subways carried quite a few cigarette ads, yet the MTA decided that it would no longer allow such legal ads (notwithstanding the fact that cigarette smoking remains a legal activity).
Get out while you can, friends!