Group to hold Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland

Published 2:13 pm Tuesday, February 17, 2015

A supporter who asked to not be identified holds a sign as she joins hundreds others outside the Curtis Culwell Center, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015, in Garland, Texas. Nearly a thousand protestors gathered outside the event center where a muslim conference against terror and hate was scheduled. Imam Siraj Wahhaj was the key note speaker at the event. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

GARLAND, Texas (AP) — A month after hundreds of people protested outside a Muslim conference in suburban Dallas, a group critical of Islam has scheduled a meeting in the same building.

The American Freedom Defense Initiative will hold a “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” on May 3 in Garland, Texas, with a prize for the best cartoon. Many Muslims consider depictions of the prophet offensive.


The Dallas Morning News reports that a group co-founder, Pamela Geller, organized the January protests outside a conference held by a Muslim group.

Geller says the contest is a direct response to Islamic terrorists’ deadly attack on a Paris newspaper that had published cartoons of Muhammad.

She said on her website that “the Muslim world has (to) stop imposing its savagery on the non-Muslim and secular Muslim world.”

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