The commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack is mired in controversy. While former American presidents, such as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, attend the ceremony organized at “Ground Zero” this Friday, the presence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is strongly criticized.
Families of September 11 victims are demanding the exclusion of the Big Apple’s first Muslim city councilor, accused of maintaining ambiguity with Islamism. A petition was launched three weeks ago and collected some 100,000 signatures, reports Le Figaro. The letter actually mentions “positions and associations” considered “hostile to values” families of victims.
The latter consider it necessary to “preserve integrity” of the ceremony which “must remain focused on remembrance, unity and an unequivocal rejection of the violence and extremism that marked that day.” Zohran Mamdani is notably accused of maintaining relationships with individuals who despise “American institutions”are “insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies”or even to have appointed chief legal advisor to the town hall Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer with anti-Zionist positions having already defended an Al-Qaeda terrorist. His relationship with Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj has also been singled out. His mosque had been frequented by some terrorists from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Other personalities also criticized the presence of Zohran Mamdani. Like the former mayor at the time of the attacks, Rudy Giuliani, who accuses him “to try to hide” the fact that the 9/11 terrorists attacked the United States “in the name of the Muslim religion”. Despite the controversy, Zohran Mamdani is participating in this Friday’s commemorations.
