The religious centre fuels Islamophobia as anti-Muslim protests sweep the U.S.
The Islamophobia that has swept the U.S. following 9/11 is being heightened by the battle over plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. And now, this issue has become a hot election topic in the run-up to mid-term elections in November. Sarah Palin has been a vociferous opponent of the mosque, and Newt Gingrich has said the mosque provides evidence that Muslims are attempting to impose sharia law in the U.S. There’s also reportedly been a surge in anti-Muslim protests across the country, including opposition to new Islamic centres from California to Georgia, plans by a Florida church to hold a “burn the Qur’an” day on September 11, and a New York group called the American Freedom Defence Initiative, which is placing adverts on New York buses showing a plane flying into one of the World Trade Center towers and asking, “Why There?”