The Controversy Over Park51 Front and Center on 10 Year Anniversary of 9/11
Pamela Geller, protesting against the Park51 project on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. (Photo: Mohsin Zaheer)
Pamela Geller, protesting against the Park51 project on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. (Photo: Mohsin Zaheer)
NEW YORK—On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, when President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush were united, bowing their heads together in moments of silence, there were some Americans around Ground Zero who remained divided and continued to point fingers at each other.
The controversy that refused to disappear was the issue of Park51, also known as the Ground Zero Mosque, a plan to build an Islamic Cultural Center two blocks away from the World Trade Center site. Each set of protesters blamed the other for the feud, and predicted they would remain divided for the foreseeable future.
Watch Mohsin Zaheer’s video report on the protestors of September 11, 2011:
Mohsin Zaheer is a Pakistani-American journalist and editor based in New York whose work spans two decades. He won the New York Community Media Alliance’s Ippies Award in 2009 and has been the beneficiary of numerous Pakistani-American awards. Zaheer joined Daily Khabrain, Lahore (the Urdu-language newspaper with the largest circulation in Pakistan) in 1989 as staff reporter, eventually becoming the Deputy Editor of Reporting. Zaheer moved to the U.S. in 1999 and joined the staff of Sada-e-Pakistan, an Urdu-language weekly, as Editor and set a new trend for Pakistani-American media by reporting on local issues and activities taking place in the U.S. He covered the 9/11 attacks, wide raging issues within the Pakistani-American community in a post 9/11 era, and the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. Zaheer also launched the Pakistani American community's first online newspaper in 1996, “The Pakistani Newspaper” (www.pn.com.pk), and continues to contribute news stories and columns to Daily Khabrain, Lahore. Zaheer earned his Master degree in Political Science and History from the University of Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan.
