NY’s Metropolitan Transit Authority appeals ruling on ‘The Muslims Are Coming!’ subway ads

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Muslims are prone to ‘fierce’ hugs and have great frittata recipes, the ads proclaimed. Another ad poster declared Muslims hate terrorism, but also despise ‘people who clip their fingernails in public.’ Yet another one of the signs apologised on behalf of Muslims for inventing algebra.

At least a federal judge got the joke.

In an October decision , Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that tongue-in-cheek ads promoting the comedy documentary “The Muslims Are Coming!” were, as intended, statements of humour, and not—as New York transport officials deemed—political commentary.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority therefore had no grounds to ban the advertisements from the subway system, McMahon said.

MTA NOV 6 APPEAL

The MTA filed a notice of appeal on November 6, but one of the poster designers, New York comedian Dean Obeidallah, said he’s confident the satirical posters will finally go up soon, after more than a year of waiting for the advertising rollout to happen.

More than a ruling about what the MTA finds funny, the October judgment effectively reaffirmed that ‘just because Islam might be mentioned in a joke doesn’t make it an expression of political opinion,’ says Glenn Katon, legal director of Muslim Advocates.

The Oakland, California, attorney helped argue the case for why the MTA was overstepping its policy by blocking the ads due to a policy against political commentary.

‘NOT ABOUT POLITICAL DEBATE’

“What we argued, and what the judge accepted, is [the ads] were not engaging in a political debate,” he says. “They were simply making jokes. And the fact they are Muslims, and the fact the jokes are related to the subject of Islam, even if it says ‘The ugly truth about Muslims is we have great frittata recipes,’ doesn’t make it an expression of political opinion.”

Katon was particularly pleased with McMahon’s opinion that the text of the movie promo ads was not prominently or predominantly political, “unless we have reached the unhappy moment in this country where the mere mention of one of the three Abrahamic faiths is ‘prominently or predominantly political’ simply because that faith is Islam.”

That was the essential theme of Katon’s case, filed on behalf of Vaguely Qualified Productions and the filmmakers who designed the posters, Obeidallah and Negin Farsad.

Obeidallah, an activist on Islamophobia issues, said the ads promoting “The Muslims Are Coming!” were always intended to use humour to play on negative portrayals of Muslims in the media, “or at least to make people see Muslims as everyday people.”

The film played in theatres in 2013 but became available on Netflix last year. Obeidallah and Farsad raised $20,000 in donations towards advertising costs.

Obeidallah says, “The Muslims Are Coming!” remains available via Netflix until January, at which point the film may be pulled off the platform or renewed for another two-year cycle.

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