Anti-jihad ads raise controversy on DC subway

October 11, 2012 02:27

US lawmaker Mike Honda has called for a boycott of Washington's Metro system over a controversial advertisement by a pro-Israel group that describes Muslim radicals as "savages."

The advertisements, which have also run on trains in New York and buses in San Francisco, went up this week at four stations in the US capital area after a federal judge ruled that the group enjoyed a right to free speech.

Citing security concerns, the operator of the Metro had sought to delay the billboards, which read: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

Representative Honda, a Democrat from California, said he supported the US Constitution's guarantee of free speech and understood the court order for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to run the advertisements.

"The right to not support hate speech is also a right, which is why I encourage people to boycott, if possible, WMATA until the ad buy is finished. We do not have to support hate speech," Honda said in a statement.

Honda, who as a child was interned at a camp due to his Japanese ancestry, said he took the issue "very personally" as he remembered during World War II the "hateful billboards and caricatures that equated Japanese Americans to savages."

"We learn from history that hate speech and hysteria have dire consequences, the result of societal complacency, failed political leadership and the lack of courage to stand up and speak out against hate," he said

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