Mild Fight Back Against Controversial Anti-Muslim Ads On SEPTA Buses
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Those controversial, anti-Islamic ads on SEPTA buses end this week, but a group of protesters say they'll continue their quiet campaign against the ads to the very end.
The group has been slapping black and yellow stickers onto the ads that label them as "hate speech." One of the organizers, Rabbi Linda Holtzman, says the group knows stickering the ads is illegal.
"The idea though that these ads would go unchecked," she Holtzman says, "and just become the normal backdrop of people who are walking through the city was way worse than any fear of either a lawsuit or of being arrested."
SEPTA was forced to accept the ads after their sponsor, the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative, sued. AFDI lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams applauded riders' restraint about the ads.
"The stickers were easy to remove," she says, "and we can understand people wanted to express their dislike of having those ads on the buses.
SEPTA has changed its ad policy so no further political ads can be purchased.