Photo by Cary Scott

Just a day after Pamela Geller, the president of the controversial American Freedom Defense Initiative, submitted an ad to WMATA that would depict an image of the prophet Muhammad, Metro’s Board of Directors have decided to temporarily ban issue-oriented ads on Metrorail and buses.

In a decision issued today, the Board says that it will “close WMATA’s advertising space to any and all issue-oriented advertising,” which includes “political, religious, and advocacy advertising” until the end of the year. The Board says it’ll use that time to review the role that issue-oriented advertising in Metrorail and Metrobuses.

Though the decision comes suspiciously soon after Geller submitted a controversial ad featuring the winning image of a “Draw Muhammad” contest that led to a shooting in Texas, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel tells DCist that the AFDI “did not come up in the discussion today,” and that it was strictly “a board decision.”

Obviously, Geller is none too thrilled about this. “The Washington MTA has suspended all issue oriented ads thru end of year after we submitted our free speech ad. Oh the irony,” Geller says in an email to DCist.

“These cowards may claim they are making people safer but I submit to you the opposite. They are making it far more dangerous for Americans everywhere. Rewarding terror with submission is defeat. Absolute and complete defeat. More demands, more violence will certainly follow,” she adds. “This is sharia in America.”