Why some 9/11 families signed petition to exclude Mamdani from memorial event

In July 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that families of 9/11 victims gathered signatures for a petition to exclude New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani from the 25th-anniversary commemoration ceremony of the terrorist attacks.

One X user wrote:

UPDATE: The families of 9/11 victims have officially garnered nearly 30,000 THOUSAND signatures saying Ugandan Mayor Mamdani should not be allowed to attend the Ground Zero commemoration in NYC

It’s clear, they DON’T WANT the ISLAMIST there.

Mamdani is the embodiment of “New York forgot.”

The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and Threads (archived). Some posts appeared to suggest that the petition represented the opinion of all 9/11 victims’ families, while others claimed it spoke only for some of the families. Snopes readers contacted us about the claim.

Claims circulated after the New York Post reported (archived) on a petition it said sought to “ban” Mamdani from the 9/11 anniversary commemoration.

That petition was real and had more than 60,000 signatures at the time of this writing. Giovanni Galante, whose wife died in the 9/11 attacks, started the petition, which asked organizers of the 25th-anniversary commemoration ceremony to “carefully consider whether Mr. Mamdani’s participation would align with the intention of the ceremony and the expectations of the families most directly affected by the tragedy.” Meryl Mayo-Marshall, whose husband died on 9/11, also told local media she had signed the petition and shared her comments in a Facebook post.

Given the above, we’ve rated the claim that some families of 9/11 victims signed a petition aimed at excluding Mamdani from the ceremony as true. 

Contrary to what some posts suggested, there was no evidence that the petition and its request to consider excluding Mamdani from the 9/11 commemoration ceremony represented the views of all of the families of the 2,976 people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Galante reportedly estimated that up to 7,500 relatives of victims had signed the petition, but told the self-described progressive Substack newsletter Popular Information that his estimate was not based on the actual list of signatories.

Snopes contacted Galante to request confirmation of the information he gave to the New York Post and Popular Information but did not receive a response by the time of publication. We also contacted Cheri Sparacio, a 9/11 victim’s wife who reportedly helped organize the petition, to ask about her involvement and await a reply.

When asked about the petition, a spokesperson from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum that was organizing the 25th- anniversary commemoration ceremony told Snopes in an emailed statement: 

We have intentionally worked to keep the commemoration free of politics because remembering those we lost on 9/11 should never be a partisan issue. Government officials from across the political spectrum, including every sitting president, governor, and mayor since 9/11, have attended the ceremony simply to bear witness — they do not deliver remarks and are asked to remain in a designated area.

The spokesperson did not reply to questions about whether the museum invited Mamdani to the ceremony and, if so, whether it would consider rescinding that invitation or asking him not to participate.

During a news conference on July 27, 2026, Mamdani said he would attend the ceremony. He told a reporter:

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.

Petition objects to Mamdani’s opinions, associations

According to the petition, family members of 9/11 victims were concerned about Mamdani’s “public positions, associations, and responses to rhetoric” that they perceived as not respectful of the victims, not recognizing the gravity of the 9/11 attacks and said failed to reject the “ideologies that contributed to such violence.”

The petition said that Mamdani had not condemned the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” which it said “many interpret as endorsing or normalizing violence.”

In a June 29, 2025, interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” then-Democratic candidate Mamdani repeatedly sidestepped requests to condemn the phrase, instead saying that it was not “language I use” but that the role of a mayor was not “to police speech.”

The petition noted other examples of Mamdani’s alleged lack of respect for 9/11 and its victims, including alleged political influence from his father, whose academic work has analyzed the rise and impact of suicide bombers and terrorism.

The petition also said Mamdani had “praised” the Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj. Mamdani faced criticism from Republicans after meeting with Wahhaj in October 2025 (archived, archived, archived).

Wahhaj, who has denied any terrorism links, once appeared on a court-ordered list of “unindicted persons who may be alleged as coconspirators” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, according to Andrew C. McCarthy, the lead prosecutor in the case. McCarthy wrote in October 2025 that prosecutors never alleged that Wahhaj was “a co-conspirator in the World Trade Center bombing or the overarching terrorism conspiracy.” He described the kind of list in which Wahhaj was included as “overly inclusive.”

Mamdani defended his meeting with Wahhaj to journalists, saying Wahhaj had previously met with other New York City mayors. Mamdani appeared to suggest that critics were placing undue emphasis on the fact that he and Wahhaj are both Muslims.

The petition also objected to Mamdani’s appointment (archived) of Ramzi Kassem as New York City’s chief counsel. Kassem represented Ahmed Muhammed Haza al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offenses involving a 2002 al-Qaida attack on a French-flagged oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. Al-Darbi later became the only prisoner released from the Guantánamo Bay detention camp during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

For further reading, Snopes has investigated a number of claims about the 9/11 attacks.

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