WASHINGTON — So far, relatively few people have seen the winning Prophet Muhammad cartoon from the Texas contest that provoked an attack by would-be jihadists this month.

But soon, commuters and tourists in the nation’s capital may be unable to avoid it.

The local transit agency is weighing a request from Pamela Geller, the anti-Islam activist behind the Garland, Texas, contest, to plaster the cartoon on buses and subway stations.

“We cannot submit to the assassin’s veto,” she said in announcing her planned ad campaign.

The ad would feature a sketch of a bearded, angry, turbaned Muhammad wielding a sword and insisting, “You can’t draw me!” In the foreground is the cartoonist’s hand and pencil, with a voice bubble defiantly replying, “That’s why I draw you.”

Geller’s request would put the cartoon on buses and on train dioramas in five subway stations.

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“Drawing Muhammad is not illegal under American law, but only under Islamic law,” Geller said in announcing her plan. “Violence that arises over the cartoons is solely the responsibility of the Islamic jihadists who perpetrate it.”

Garland officers fatally shot the heavily armed attackers, Nadir Soofi, 34, and Elton Simpson, 31, when they opened fire in the parking lot outside the May 3 event.

Morgan Dye, spokeswoman for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Agency, said the ad is under review.

“It’s going through a review process and has not yet been approved,” she said, adding that free speech protections don’t necessarily trump all considerations.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that monitors hate crimes and pushes back against Islamophobia, urged WMATA to reject the ads.

“Metro officials should treat Pamela Geller’s request the same way they would treat a request to display neo-Nazi or KKK ads,” he said Wednesday.

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Geller has been hailed as a patriot and denounced as a bigot. The Long Islander became an anti-Muslim activist after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, gaining notoriety for fighting against construction of a mosque near the former World Trade Center site.

This wouldn’t be the first time she has used public transit to amplify her message that Islamic law is creeping into American society. Last month, a federal judge sided with the American Freedom Defense Initiative, her pro-Israel organization, ordering transit officials in New York City to allow subway ads that even the judge deemed “offensive.”

Officials had resisted, citing concerns of potential violence. The ads feature a man in a head scarf, with the words, “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us closer to Allah,” and the tagline “That’s his jihad. What’s yours?”

The court loss prompted New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to consider barring all political advertising, so it could avoid having to accept ads it deems offensive.

In Washington, she has paid for bus ads featuring a photo of Nazi Adolf Hitler talking with a Muslim leader beside the message “Islamic Jew-hatred: It’s in the Quran.” In San Francisco, Geller was behind another ad campaign that showed journalist James Foley moments before ISIS beheaded him last year.

Geller, appearing Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, defended the cartoon contest and her effort to publicize the winning cartoon.

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“The fact is, the political, cultural and academic elites are censoring this cartoon,” she asserted. ” … No one elected the media or the academia our proxy to relinquish our freedom of speech.”

Fox commentator Juan Williams accused Geller of going out of her way to provoke controversy and to offend and demean Muslims.

She denied that, countering that she is only trying to fight bullies — she put Williams in that category — “who want to impose the Shariah. This is the Shariah, Juan. Where are you going to stop? Are you going to stop drinking beer? Are you going to stop girls from wearing short skirts?”

“Muslims that support free speech will not be offended. Muslims that want to impose a sharia will be offended,” she said. ” … I did not make the cartoons the flash point. The jihadis made the cartoons a flash point and if we give up on this point, what is next?”


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