MAIL ONLINE: The growing movement against the building of a mosque near Ground Zero has gained another prominent supporter: the first Muslim Miss USA.
Rima Fakih, 24, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants and a Muslim, criticised the location of the planned £70 million Islamic Cultural Center planned just two blocks away from Ground Zero.
'It shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center,' Fakih, 24, told Inside Edition during a break from the Miss Universe pageant preparations in Las Vegas.
'We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.'
After wading into the highly-charged political issue, the Michigan-born Fakih then went on to support President Obama's statement on the constitutional rights of religious freedom.
'I totally agree with President Obama with (that) statement,' said Fakih.
Meanwhile growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero, according to the New York Daily News.
'It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground,' said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.
The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet, says the Daily News. One construction worker created the Hard Hat Pledge on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays in its current location.
'Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country,' said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn.
'People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there. >>> Mail Foreign Correspondent | Saturday, August 21, 2010
