9/11 families want Mamdani banned from Ground Zero anniversary

Families of victims of the September 11 attacks were seeking to prevent New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani from attending the 25th-anniversary commemoration at Ground Zero, the New York Post reported Saturday.

A petition calling on the National September 11 Memorial & Museum to exclude Mamdani had collected more than 1,100 signatures in just over a week, including those of at least 300 victims’ relatives, according to the Post. Organizers cited the mayor's association with and support for individuals who had minimized the attacks or expressed sympathy for Islamic extremists.

Giovanni Galante, whose wife Grace Catherine Galante was among the 2,977 people killed by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, said the effort was based on Mamdani’s public record rather than partisan politics.

“This day is sacred to us,” Galante told the Post, arguing that the ceremony should not provide a platform for anyone connected to views that victims’ relatives found offensive. He described Mamdani’s potential attendance as comparable to an unwelcome guest intruding on a deeply personal event.

The petition called for the anniversary to remain focused on remembrance, national unity and the rejection of the extremism behind the attacks. Its organizers hoped to enlist city lawmakers in pressuring the memorial and museum, which organizes the annual ceremony at the former World Trade Center site.

Among their objections, petitioners cited Mamdani’s reluctance to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” his praise for Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj and his relationship with extreme left commentator Hasan Piker, who previously said that “America deserved” the September 11 attacks.

They also pointed to writings by Mamdani’s father, Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani, who argued after September 11 that suicide bombings should be understood as a form of modern political violence rather than treated solely as barbarism.

The petition further criticized the mayor’s appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city’s chief counsel. Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty before a US military commission to involvement in an al-Qaeda plot to bomb an oil tanker.

Cheri Sparacio, whose husband Thomas was killed in the attacks, told the Post that Mamdani’s record contained more objectionable examples than organizers could include in the petition. She also criticized his statements about Muslims facing increased discrimination after September 11, arguing that they improperly shifted attention away from those murdered in the attacks.