Texas “Muhammad Art Exhibit” Sponsored by Group Behind Anti-Islam SEPTA Ads
Police officers stands guard at a parking lot near the Curtis Culwell Center where a provocative contest for cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad was held Sunday, May 3, 2015, in Garland, Texas. The contest was put on lockdown Sunday night and attendees were being evacuated after authorities reported a shooting outside the building.
The same group that sponsored an anti-Islam ad campaign on SEPTA buses last month also sponsored the Texas “art show” where two suspects were killed Sunday after shooting a security guard.
https://twitter.com/Gcastillophoto/status/595034868469207042
The American Freedom Defense Initiative had sponsored a “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, where the attack took place. Many Muslims believe that depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are offensive.
The Dallas Morning News reports:
The two men pulled up in a vehicle and shot a Garland ISD officer. The men were fatally shot by Garland police, and their bodies remain on the street outside the events center.
The security officer’s wounds were not believed to be life-threatening, but he had been hospitalized.
Opponents had said the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest on Sunday would be an attack on Islam. But its organizers said they were simply exercising their right of expression.
The newspaper reported that the AFDI had paid an extra $10,000 for security at the event.
“This is war,” one of the event’s organizers, Pamela Geller, tweeted in the shooting’s aftermath.
More from the City of Garland Facebook page:
As today’s Muhammad Art Exhibit event at the Curtis Culwell Center was coming to an end, two males drove up to the front…
Posted by City of Garland, Texas Government on Sunday, May 3, 2015
AFDI sponsored the anti-Islam ads on Philly buses, which drew condemnation from Islamic groups from as far away as Egypt. SEPTA officials said last week that the group’s $30,000 contract was expiring at the end of the week, and that the ads would be removed.
SEPTA officials have said they are revising the agency’s policies so that no ads containing political content will be accepted.
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