NEW YORK – The proposed Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero drew hundreds of fever-pitch demonstrators Sunday, with opponents carrying signs associating Islam with blood, supporters shouting, “Say no to racist fear!” and American flags waving on both sides.
The dual protests had taunts, tensions and the occasional minor scuffle. Around 500 opponents of the center stood in a cordoned-off area, singing patriotic songs and speaking of a hijacked Constitution, while about 200 supporters held a counterprotest nearby.
Although the groups taunted each other, and an occasional small scuffle broke out, a sizable and wary police force was diligent in keeping the two apart, at times aggressively pushing supporters of the center away from the area where the larger protest was taking place.
Opponents of the Islamic center and mosque insisted they fully supported religious freedoms, but that the location represented an incursion on the rights of Americans who deemed Ground Zero a hallowed space.
“It’s a disgrace to have a mosque at this sacred site; it’s a smack in the face,” said Kali Costas, a Long Island education worker who said she was a member of the tea party.
While many of the protesters seemed to conflate the mosque debate with the policies of President Obama and the broader federal government, some individuals said they simply believed the mosque’s organizers had not listened to all sides.
“I’m upset at how this whole thing was handled,” said Dominick DeRubbio, 25, whose uncle, firefighter David DeRubbio, died in the World Trade Center. “The level of defiance is running high. They’re saying, ‘We’re doing this whether you like it or not.’ ”
But those who came out to support the organizers of the Islamic center said they believed the protesters were propagating the type of hate speech spread by segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s.
“It reminds me of my parents, my grandparents, when they were fighting the civil rights movement,” said Jibril Stringer, 23, of Brooklyn.
He said the scene reminded him of the protests when the National Guard helped integrate an Arkansas high school in 1957. “That’s the picture I had in my head when I came down here today,” he said.
Dr. Ali Akram, a 39-year-old Brooklyn physician, came with his three sons and an 11-year-old nephew waving an American flag. He noted that scores of Muslims were among those who died in the towers, and he called those who oppose the mosque “un-American.”
“They teach their children about the freedom of religion in America – but they don’t practice what they preach,” Akram said.
