WASHINGTON – Advertisements sponsored by a Muslim advocacy group were unveiled Friday in response to a pro-Israel ad posted in four Metro stations this week.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations plans to have the ads installed at three Metro stations by next Wednesday, according to council national executive director Nihad Awad.
The ad quotes a verse from the Quran: “Show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant.”
The ads will stay up for a month in the Glenmont, Georgia Avenue-Petworth and U Street Metro stations – three of the four stations featuring pro-Israel ads that equate radical Muslims with “savages.”
The pro-Israel ads went up Monday in those three Metro stations as well as in the Takoma Park station.
Awad says the pro-Israel ad creates an “atmosphere of violence and bigotry against Muslims.”
The American Freedom Defense Initiative, an organization sponsoring the pro-Israel ads, sued last month for the right to display the ads in the Metro system.
Metro delayed posting the ads because of violent reaction in the Middle East to the video “Innocence of Muslims,” which was produced in the United States and depicts the prophet Muhammad in a negative light.
WTOP’s Veronica Robinson contributed to this report.Follow WTOP on Twitter.
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