The first annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest will be held on Sunday, May 3, at the Curtis Culwell Center, 5-7 pm, in the Dallas suburb of Garland, Texas. It will be hosted by human rights and free-speech activist Pamela Geller and her organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI).
The exhibit will feature images of Islam’s prophet in both historical and contemporary settings, showcasing the top 200 artistic renditions that were submitted for consideration. The winner will be announced at the event, and a $10,000 prize will be awarded.
The keynote speaker will be Geert Wilders, a member of The Netherlands Parliament. Wilders led the fight for de-Islamization in his country, which has faced many of the same problems with Muslim assimilation as have other European countries, including the advent of controversial “no-go zones” inaccessible to non-Muslims, including public officials.
Geller has a special offer for Breitbart readers: free tickets. To take advantage of this invitation, email muhammadartexpo@gmail.com. Regular admission is $50 per person.
The Curtis Culwell Center is owned and operated by the Garland Independent School District. It was the site of the “Stand with the Prophet in Honor and Respect” rally in January. About two thousand Texans came to stand with Geller on the side of free speech and protest the Islamic fundraiser, which came on the heels of jihadis slaughtering the French cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo.
In an email, Geller told Breitbart Texas, “At a time when American Muslim groups in the US should have stood up for free speech and showed the world the way forward, they chose to stand with the Hebdo jihadists.”
“One of their speakers was Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings trial,” Geller recalled. “Wahhaj has called the FBI and CIA the ‘real terrorists,’ and expressed a desire for all Americans to become Muslim, according to the New York Post.”
The exhibit was a logical next step for AFDI. “Rewarding savagery with submission is surrender. We cannot forfeit the greatest of all God’s gifts -freedom,” Geller declared.
Geller recently wrote about the winning People’s Choice Muhammad cartoon (pictured) for Breitbart News, and how it “best illustrates the reason why we are having this contest and art exhibit to begin with.”
“We draw Muhammad because we are free,” she explained. “We draw Muhammad because our unalienable rights are enshrined in the First Amendment. The freedom of speech is the First Amendment — not the fifth or the eighth or the tenth. The first — and that’s for an important reason: it is the cornerstone of all our other freedoms.”
“We choose freedom,” Geller emphasized in an email to Breitbart Texas. “Which is why we are holding our free speech event in the same venue, in the same city and state as the Muslim sharia event. Freedom lovers must stand up for free speech and not submit to savagery, supremism and tyranny, now. The jihadists mean to bring this war to our streets.”
Breitbart Texas reported that Democratic US Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN) and André Carson (D-IN) are seeking to block Wilders from entering the United States and prevent his appearance at the inaugural event. They co-authored a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, asking them to block Wilders’ entry under the authority of the International Religious Freedom Act. The Act allows the State Department to ban the entry of foreign leaders “responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.”
Geller has been sounding the alarm about Muslim encroachment into Europe and America, and its potential impact on American culture, for quite some time. In 2010, she organized and led a group of approximately 5,000 protesters (according to her estimate) in a march on the site of the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque.” Eventually, plans for that mosque were cancelled.
The Curtis Culwell Center is located at 4999 Naaman Forest Blvd. in Garland. Again, the event will be held on Sunday, May 3, 5-7 pm.
Follow Merrill Hope on Twitter @OutOfTheBoxMom.