Cartoon winner of draw Mohamed competition banned from Washington DC subway

The image was produced for a contest held in Texas which saw a deadly shooting at its event this month

The image of the prophet was banned by the transport authority's board of directors (Alex Wong/ Getty)

A controversial plan to display a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed as an advertisement on the Washington DC Metro system has been blocked by transport officials.

The cartoon was the winner of a provocative contest top draw the Prophet, held by the American Freedom Defence Initiative, which led to the shooting of two gunmen in Texas earlier this month.

The application for the advertisement was submitted by Pamela Geller, founder of AFDI, who claimed that nothing about the cartoon “incites violence”.

Ms Geller attacked Washington DC’s transport authority for its decision to ban the advert, commenting on her website that “rewarding terror with submission is defeat, absolute and complete defeat”.

The image depicts an image of the Prophet brandishing a sword, saying "You can't draw me", with an artist's pen replying "That's why I draw you".

The Washington Metroplitan Area Transit Authority’s board of directors voted yesterday to suspend issue-oriented advertisements until the end of the year, although the agency did not say the move was being made in response to any particular ad.

Dan Stessel, a Metro spokesman, said in a statement: “We are aware that an ad has been submitted.

“It is going through a review process and has not yet been approved for our system.”

The AFDI has previously run controversial ads on subways and buses in cities across America and in 2012 published a poster which was deemed offensive to Muslims on the Washington DC Metro.

Ms Geller told NBC: “There is nothing about this cartoon that incites violence, It is within the established American tradition of satire.

If America surrenders on this point, the freedom of speech is a relic of history,” Ms Geller added.