Texas officer saved lives in shooting outside Muhammad cartoon contest, police say | Fox News: The event featured speeches by Pamela Geller, president of the AFDI, and Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker known for his outspoken criticism of Islam. Wilders received several standing ovations as he quoted former President Ronald Reagan and Texas founding father Sam Houston.
Geller told the AP before Sunday's event that she planned the contest to make a stand for free speech in response to outcries and violence over drawings of Muhammad. Though it remained unclear several hours after the shooting whether it was related to event, she said Sunday night that the shooting showed how "needed our event really was."
In January, 12 people were killed by gunmen in an attack against the Paris office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which had lampooned Islam and other religions and used depictions of Muhammad. Another deadly shooting occurred the following month at a free speech event in Copenhagen featuring an artist who had caricatured the prophet.
Geller's group is known for mounting a campaign against the building of an Islamic center blocks from the World Trade Center site and for buying advertising space in cities across the U.S. criticizing Islam.
When a Chicago-based nonprofit held a January fundraiser in Garland designed to help Muslims combat negative depictions of their faith, Geller spearheaded about 1,000 picketers at the event. One chanted: "Go back to your own countries! We don't want you here!" Others held signs with messages such as, "Insult those who behead others," an apparent reference to recent beheadings by the militant group Islamic State.
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Pamela Geller (born June 14, 1958) is an American political activist and commentator. She is known for her anti-Islamic positions and opposition to Islamic activities and causes, such as the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near the former site of the World Trade Center.
Her viewpoints have been described as anti-Islamic or Islamophobic. She says her blogging and campaigns in the United States are against what she terms "creeping Sharia" in the country. She is described as a critic of radical Islam and self-described as opposing political Islam.
She is currently the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative which she co-founded with Robert Spencer.[11][12] The American Freedom Defense Initiative has been designated a Muslim hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization known for tracking hate groups. The British government designated Geller's organizations hate groups and barred Geller's entry into the UK in 2013. She and Spencer co-authored the book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America in 2010.
The Huffington Post has called her "far right" as have other media sources while others, such as the BBC contrast her right-wing support for small government with her socially liberal positions.
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“The discussion we have to have is:
Shooting Clouds Life
as
Both
Muslim and Texan
When does free speech become hate speech,
and when does hate speech become incitement to violence?
Free speech is not the same as responsible speech.”
~( Alia Salem: Executive Director Council on American-Islamic Relations)
GARLAND, Tex. — When Muslim leaders in the Dallas area learned in February that a provocative blogger had rented space to exhibit caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, they decided to ignore her.
They were well acquainted with Pamela Geller’s vitriol against Islam and figured that there was no point protesting and giving her free publicity.
“We don’t want to be falling for her tactics,” Alia Salem, the executive director of the Dallas and Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said to her colleagues. “She’s trying to bait the Muslim community.”
“The discussion we have to have is: When does free speech become hate speech, and when does hate speech become incitement to violence?” Ms. Salem said. “Free speech is not the same as responsible speech.”
Muslims in the Dallas area have worked hard to find their footing in the conservative Christian culture of the Texas suburbs, and the shooting on Sunday in Garland set off another vigorous effort to defend their faith and their American ideals, while also condemning extremism of any kind.
Texas, and Dallas in particular, has been both welcoming to Muslims and accommodating of bigotry. Even as the numbers and economic clout of Muslims continue to grow — an estimated 200,000 now live in the Dallas area — they have faced a series of political and cultural challenges just in the past few months.
The shooting in Texas, showcasing that there are Islamic extremists in the United States encouraged by radicals overseas, comes just as Muslims here have been confronting suspicions about their faith and loyalty.
An imam who gave a nondenominational prayer at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo in February, at the invitation of organizers seeking to be more inclusive, received so many hateful comments on social media afterward that he canceled a second scheduled appearance there.
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