Miami-Dade Bans Bus Ads Encouraging People to Leave Islam

The controversial bus ads (top), as well as the pro-Islam ads (bottom) the group was spoofing

​Miami-Dade Transit had ten public buses driving around the county this week with ads imploring followers to leave the Islamic faith. "Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you?" read the ads, along with the URL for a website asking Muslims to basically stop being Muslims.

Stop the Islamization of America, a New York-based group, had paid for the ads to run for a month. However, the Council on American-Islamic Relations complained that the ads were offensive, and Transit agreed to remove them.

The ads, SIOA says, are in part a response to recent incidents like that of Noor Almaleki, a 20-year-old girl was "honor killed" by her father because he believed she had become too Americanized. CAIR, for their part, says they also reject such incidents and claim they are not representative of mainstream Islam.

CAIR also launched bus ads in Miami in 2008 asking anyone who had misunderstandings about the faith to call a hotline. SIOA's ads were modeled after similar pro-Islam bus ads that did not run in Miami-Dade.