For weeks now, a movement has been underway to get organizers to persuade New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend 9/11 remembrance events on the grounds that his appearance would be too upsetting and painful for some of the family members.
Some of those family members started a petition that noted concerns about how the mayor “blamed the United States for radicalizing Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda propagandist linked to the 9/11 hijackers.” Further, they noted Mamdani “appointed Ramzi Kassem, who previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi (convicted in an al-Qaeda tanker bombing plot), as New York City’s chief counsel” and “praised Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who has been linked to radical Islam, [and] was named as an alleged co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.”
Amid reports of the petition circulating at the time, Mamdani declared during a press conference that “I will proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack by standing alongside them at this year’s 9/11 commemoration, reaffirming that we will never forget the solemn day felt by all of us who call this city home, and frankly, by all of us who call this country home.”
As Legal Insurrection reported, some petition organizers and signers held a public gathering on Tuesday, where they discussed the position and issued another call for Mamdani not to attend the ceremonies.
In an update to that story, the petition, which reportedly includes the signatures of “at least 300” family members, was delivered to City Hall on Tuesday:
Family members of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks delivered a petition with more than 100,000 signatures to New York City Hall on Tuesday, urging New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend this week’s ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
New York City Council member Joann Ariola stated that she “stood on the steps of City Hall with the loved ones of many victims of the 9/11 terror attacks” and “demanded that Mayor Mamdani stay away from this year’s ceremonies.”
Ariola said the group handed the petition to a member of Chief Counsel Ramzi Kassem’s staff. Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty before a U.S. military commission to terrorism-related charges stemming from an al-Qaeda plot to attack commercial shipping.
Meanwhile, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) continues rushing to Mamdani’s defense, as she did multiple times yesterday. First in a tweet:
Division should not prevail over the spirit of unity that brought us together after September 11th.
On this 25th anniversary, we should honor those we lost by coming together again as New Yorkers and Americans.
The Mayor of New York City will be there, as he should be. https://t.co/k216IcmhzJ
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) September 8, 2026
And then in condemnation of former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s criticism of Mamdani’s insistence on attending the events, and the ex-mayor’s insinuation that Mamdani shared the views of the 9/11 terrorists:
Gov. Kathy Hochul called Giuliani’s comments “wildly inappropriate,” saying the 25th anniversary should be a time for New Yorkers to come together.
“This is a moment in our time we should be united as a people,” Hochul said. “Twenty-five years of pain and sorrow for so many individuals and families. So many first responders, the firemen, doctors are still living at the trauma, and many times the illnesses. This is a time when people should be welcome to come together in our collective grief, memory, honoring those people, not trying to divide us. That’s abhorrent.”
As I’ve noted before, I can only imagine what family members go through every year around the time of anniversary services. To have to be subjected to an America-hating/blaming terrorist sympathizer like Mamdani pretending to show support and sympathy for all they’ve had to endure over the last 25 years is just too much to expect them to have to sit through.
Remember, in addition to the concerns mentioned in the petition, Mamdani has tried to portray Muslims as the true victims of 9/11. As an example, the speech he gave in 2025 as a mayoral nominee about “Islamophobia” after 9/11 and how his purported “aunt” was supposedly too afraid to take the subway “because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”
Predictably, his convenient story fell apart, with Mamdani clarifying that the alleged woman wasn’t actually his aunt. Incredibly but not surprisingly, he accused those who questioned the story of… you guessed it, Islamophobia. Because the problem was not, of course, that he lied; it’s that his critics had the audacity to point it out.
This guy has chutzpah on steroids, so it’s par for the course for him to disrespectfully ignore the wishes of the families who have made clear they don’t want him at the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies. But one would have hoped for a little more backbone from Hochul on the subject, considering that, unlike Mamdani, she was actually born and raised in New York State.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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