The Washington Metro board voted on Thursday to stop showing issue ads throughout its system, just a few days after Texas activist and conservative blogger Pamela Geller requested the system place ads showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
In a brief motion, the board’s chairman Mort Downey, wrote only that the “Board directs management to close WMATA’s advertising space to any and all issue-oriented advertising, including but not limited to political religious and advocacy advertising until the end of the calendar year.”
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The board made no mention of Geller or the Mohammed cartoons. But in a statement, Geller accused the Washington Metro board of being “cowards.”
“This is an end run around the First Amendment. These cowards may claim they are making people safer but I submit to you the opposite. They are making it far more dangerous for Americans everywhere. Rewarding terror with submission is defeat,” Geller said.
Geller announced on Tuesday that her group was launching an ad campaign on the Washington Metro using the winning cartoon depicting Mohammed from her group’s contest in Texas.
Two ISIS recruits attacked Geller’s cartoon contest in Texas earlier this month and were shot dead by law enforcement.
Geller is not the only anti-Muslim activist pushing controversial contests and rallies.
Jon Ritzheimer, the organizer of an anti-Muslim protest at a Phoenix mosque, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper he was fighting Islam because he believes the core of the religion is violent.
“True Islam is terrorism,” Ritzheimer said.
CNN’s Eric Fiegel contributed to this report.
