A Muslim bus driver in Brooklyn said it’s “inappropriate” for the MTA to allow ads on 40 city buses that offer “refuge from Islam.”
“They should be taken down. It’s a city-owned bus – it’s like telling people it’s OK to be against Muslims,” said driver Reda Ahmed, whose bus bore the ad.
Upper West Side resident Pamela Geller, founder of Stop the Islamization of America, paid for the ads to run through mid-June. She put the ads on Miami buses in April. They were briefly taken down after complaints then put back up.
If many people are offended, ads can be pulled, but no formal complaint has been received, an MTA spokesperson said. Some Muslim passengers have complained, drivers said.
“She’s free to say what she wants and people are free to criticize her tactics and motives,” said Faiza Ali of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“The bus ads are essential in standing by the many former Muslims who are living in fear from threats of death right here in America,” said Nonie Darwish, president of Former Muslims United, a California-based support group for people who leave Islam.
