Anger Continues To Grow Over Planned Mosque Near Ground Zero In New York City

ON SCENE NEWS ALERT from Affiliate Reporter William Speir

Ground Zero, New York City, NY–
The human rights group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) hosted a rally in Manhattan on June 6 to protest the planned construction by Islamic supremacists of a large $100 million, 13-story mosque and community center overlooking Ground Zero (see pictures below). Thousands of people from across the U.S. assembled in New York City on that Sunday to voice their opposition to the proposed plan, which is being called the “Cordoba House on Park Place.”

Manhattan Community Board Approves Mosque Plan.

In May 2010, a community board in New York voted overwhelmingly to support a proposal to build a mosque in a building just a short walk away from Ground Zero, the site of the devastating terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. After four hours of contentious debate, the board voted 29-1 in favor of the proposal, with 10 members abstaining.

Critics of the plan who attended the community board meeting stated that “It is disrespectful to the victims of the attack to build a Muslim religious space so close to a site destroyed by Islamist extremists.” Supporters of the plan, though, stated that “It is important to show tolerance for all religious groups and that the space will encourage a moderate interpretation of Islam very different from the extremist views behind the attack.”

“It’s a seed of peace,” board member Rob Townley said. “We believe that this is significant step in the Muslim community to counteract the hate and fanaticism in the minority of the community.”

The community board’s vote is only a recommendation, but is being seen as an indicator of community opinion. The organization behind the plans for the mosque must also obtain approval from the Landmarks Preservation committee. The proposed mosque is slated to be built in the old Burlington Coat Factory building, just 600 feet from where the towers fell. City officials have said that this building, which would be torn down to make room for the mosque and cultural center, is historically and architecturally significant.

“The building was constructed between 1857 and 1858 in the Italian Renaissance palazzo style and was one of dozens in the Tribeca neighborhood proposed as landmarks in the late 1980s,” Landmarks Preservation Commission spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon said. It was damaged by debris in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A vote on the landmark status of the building will determine whether the Muslim groups can tear it down or will have to seek approval to alter the existing structure.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the head of the Cordoba Institute, which is in charge of the project, insisted that the site would help “bridge the great divide” between Muslims and the rest of America. “We are Americans, we are Muslim Americans,” Rauf said at the community board meeting. “Many of us were born in the United States. We have no higher aspirations than to bring up our children in peace and harmony in this country.”

Imam Rauf also said he understood the anguish but noted that his group condemned the 9/11 attacks, which killed members of his community and congregation as well. “We have worked to ensure that our mosques are not recruiting grounds for terrorists,” he said.

The SIOA Disagrees.

SIOA is one of America’s foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia (Islamic Law) to the United States. According to SIOA:

• “Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious freedom, but of resisting an effort to insult the victims of 9/11 and to establish a beachhead for political Islam and Islamic supremacism in New York. Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is an open proponent of Sharia, a system that denies the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law.”

• “Abdul Rauf has said that ‘an Islamic state can be established in more then just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Shariah that are required to govern.’ Thus it is clear that this mosque will teach Sharia, Islamic supremacism, and the denial of basic rights.”

• “Abdul Rauf and other mosque organizers have been inconsistent and deceptive about whether their planned Islamic Center at Ground Zero will contain a mosque; ultimately they have admitted that it will. Belying his claim that this mosque will become a place for interreligious harmony, he has told the Arabic press: ‘I don’t believe in religious dialogue.’”

• “Abdul Rauf has been deceptive on other occasions as well. He has told the English-language press that mosque funding will come entirely from Muslims in America, while telling the Arabic-language press that many Muslim countries are contributing to funding for the mosque. His wife Daisy Khan has trivialized and insulted the memories of the victims of the 9/11 jihad attacks by saying that the mosque is intended to ‘make something positive out of 9/11.’”

Peaceful Protest in New York.

More than 5,000 people from all over the United States gathered in the New York to protest the building of the mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. Protestors are hopeful that the public outcry will change hearts and minds and ultimately keep the mosque from being built.

Several members of families who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, were among the protestors. They displayed photos of their family members who died. Many of the other protestors were immigrants, including Russian Jews, Arab Christians and Indians who love American freedoms and who fear that the growing Islamization of America is slowly eroding that liberty. “We are very happy. America has given us freedom of religion, but we do not want to destroy this country! Islam wants to destroy this country that’s the big difference between them and us,” said Narain Kataia, an Indian American.

Organizers of the June 6 protest say the man behind the mosque, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is not the man of peace he claims to be. “He says he advocates for tolerance, but in his book he advocates for Sharia law which is radically intolerant,” said Pamela Gellar, who leads the SIOA. “We have no idea where the funding is coming from. We know his father built an Islamic Center on 96th street and was funded by 49 Muslim countries. Who’s funding this $50 million monster? We want to know.”

According to the SIOA, groups supporting the June 6 protest included: the Freedom Defense Initiative; ACT for America (ACT Manhattan chapter); Z Street; SIOE; No Mosque at Ground Zero; Staten Island Tea Party; American Bulldogs; VAST; the Center for Security Policy; Shalom International; the Unity Coalition for Israel; 911 Families; Indian American Intellectuals Forum; Veterans Against Jihad (VAJ); and Faith Freedom International.

The planned speakers at the protest included: Nonie Darwish, ex-Muslim and author of Now They Call Me Infidel; Simon Deng, the Sudanese ex-slave and campaigner for human rights for Sudanese Christians; James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force; Anders Gravers of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE); leader and human rights activist Dr. Babu Suseelan; New York Congressional candidates Michael Faulkner, Dan Maloney and Gary Berntsen; author Richard Connerney, a philosophy professor at Pace University; and human rights activist Pamela Hall. Also speaking will be friends and relatives of victims of the 9/11 attacks.

The SIOA is calling upon the Imam Feisal and other mosque organizers to withdraw their plans for the Ground Zero mosque in the interests of mutual understanding and mutual respect. “Ground Zero is a war memorial, a burial ground. Respect it.”

NY Post, AP wire service, Internet; Blogospeir contributed to this article