Council Member Hanif condemns anti-Muslim rhetoric targeting Mayor Mamdani
Shahana Hanif condemns anti-Muslim rhetoric from council members exploiting 9/11 to demand Mayor Mamdani not participate in tomorrow's commemoration, sharing her own experience as a Muslim New Yorker who mourned on 9/11 and faced years of surveillance and hate.
Councilmember Hanif, followed by Gennaro.
Thank you, Majority Leader.
As we commemorate 25 years since the 9-11 terrorist attacks, we remember the thousands whose lives were taken and the families who have carried that loss for a quarter century.
When we should be united in mourning, we are instead confronting a disgusting wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric from those exploiting this tragedy to advance a politics of hate and exclusion.
Some here have demanded that Mayor Mamdani not participate in tomorrow's commemoration because he is Muslim.
Mayor Mamdani has honored victims and survivors through action by finally releasing records they have fought decades to access.
This will help responders and survivors get the care they need.
care and compensation they deserve.
On September 11, 2001, I was 10 years old, sitting in my fifth grade classroom at PS 230 in Kensington.
Zohran was nine.
Muslim New Yorkers mourned that day and lost loved ones.
And then we endured years of suspicion, surveillance, profiling, and hate because of who we are.
Acknowledging that harm does not diminish our grief for those murdered on September 11th.
It is a part of our story.
I'm asking my colleagues in this body to condemn the anti-Muslim hate coming from members of this council.
Silence in the face of this rhetoric gives it permission to continue.
Muslim New Yorkers belong here.
New Yorkers of every faith and no faith belong here.
Mayor Mamdani belongs at tomorrow's commemoration.
Our differences can never determine whose grief matters, whose rights are protected, or who gets to belong in this city.
Thank you.
All right.