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Rival protests held at New York Ground Zero mosque site

Hundreds of people took part in rival protests over plans for a mosque near the site of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Police kept the banner-waving groups apart, although there were no reports of violence between supporters and opponents of the scheme in New York.

Opponents chanted "No mosque, no way" as supporters responded with "Say no to racist fear".

Developers plan to convert an old building into a 13-storey Islamic community centre and mosque.

Feelings ran high during Sunday's protests in Manhattan, close to Ground Zero.

'Un-American' claims
There were face-to-face confrontations as demonstrators shouted at each other across the barricades, the Associated Press reported.

Opponents want the mosque to be moved further from the site where more than 2,700 people were killed in the September 11 terror attacks.

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Steve Ayling, a 40-year-old plumber from Brooklyn, told AP: "They should put it in the Middle East." The people behind the mosque project were "the same people who took down the twin towers", he said.

But Dr Ali Akram, a 39-year-old doctor also from Brooklyn, said that scores of Muslims died in the twin towers. Opponents of the mosque were "un-American," he said.

"They teach their children about the freedom of religion in America - but they don't practice what they preach."

The plan by a New York developer to build the centre and mosque about two blocks from the former World Trade Center site has been attacked by prominent Republican politicians and conservative pundits.

President Barack Obama has come under fire over his defence of the developer's right to build a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero.

Later a scuffle broke out at the site of the pro-mosque protest a when a mosque opponent held up a sign that read, "I can draw Mohammed if you can build a mosque."

Riches says he knows the owners have the right to build the mosque but that seeing it will make visiting the site where his son died more painful.

"Muslims were dancing in the street celebrating the murder of my son that day, we still believe in religious freedom but it should be further away, show sensitivity for the families," Riches said.

Robert Spencer employs a number of deceptive arguments and tactics in his polemics that often go uncontested in the blogosphere including but not limited to:

-projecting the actions of an individual as an inherent trait of the entire group

-taking the most extreme opinions and interpretations of Islam and asserting them as correct, normative and mainstream
..
Because Robert Spencer preys on the gullible, confused, and fearful in order to stoke the flames of hate and intolerance in their minds and hearts against Muslims at large, and Islam as a religion – rather than against terrorism and terrorists.

"GODDAMN MUSLIMS TRYING TO BLOW UP OUR BUILDINGS!"

"Let's blow em up ourselves so they don't have anything to bomb. Let's see how they like it"