NEW YORK -- The wife of an imam planning an Islamic community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site said Sunday that she and her husband have received death threats.

"For the record, my life is under threat," Daisy Khan said during a town hall debate on Islam broadcast on ABC's "This Week" news program.

Khan, who's married to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, said her husband's life also is under threat but, "We do not walk around with bodyguards because we love this country."

Chief police spokesman Paul Browne confirmed that Khan had told authorities about the telephone threats she'd received.

"There were telephone threats made," Browne said, adding the police department was investigating.

Rauf would be a spiritual leader of a 16-story Islamic center and mosque planned for lower Manhattan two blocks north of where Islamic extremists destroyed the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and killed nearly 2,800 people.

But the center's location has upset some relatives of Sept. 11 victims and stirred nationwide debate and angry demands that it be moved. Critics say the site of mass murder by Islamic extremists is no place for an Islamic institution, while supporters of the center say religious freedom should be protected.

The debate on "This Week" posed the question, "Should Americans fear Islam?"

Besides Khan, panelists included two relatives of Sept. 11 victims, former FBI agent Brad Garrett and the Rev. Franklin Graham, who heads the evangelical Christian organization founded by his father, Billy Graham.

Khan said that moderate Muslims like her must lead the fight against extremists in their religion.

"This is what we Muslims want to do, but you have tied our hands," Khan said. "You don't allow us to do this because you brand somebody like me as an extremist and throw me into the arms of Al Qaeda."

Developer Sharif El-Gamal last week released preliminary sketches of the planned Islamic center. He said groundbreaking is probably two to three years away.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/03/imam-proposed-mosque-near-ground-zero-receiving-death-threats/

I may not like this guy but if he gets wacked he will just become a marytr. Plus the people making these threats are no better then the terrorists that hit us on 9/11, bombed the Cole or hit the Embassies.

Plus now we as tax payers get to pay for a security detail for this clown.

The wives are getting death threats by their own families anyways!!
Its in their culture to kill and torture women for "honor".

Yea but I am against women getting threatened all together. I am also against threats made like this because it makes us look like animals.

Hmmm, I say "kill them all"....any of them. They are scum.

Not to mention we will have Federal Agent's pulled off their duties from tracking down terrorists and bad guys and protecting people that matter to being put on a detail to protect this clown.

Well, if whoever is doing the threatening hurries up and gets it done, then the federal agents can go back to their regular duties!!

Do you realize that if ANYTHING happens to this guy or his wife, we will for sure get stuck with that Jihad training center by Ground Zero?

Also if something happens to either of them they will be Agents and prosecutors assigned to the case full time and the rest of his family will be be assigned a protective detail, so it will end up costing us a lot more.

lol they can pay me to "protect" him...

They are going to build it anyways. Why let them have their way altogether??

Have you graduated from FLETC?

I don't think they will, at least not close to Ground Zero.

If they build it ANYWHERE on American soil, they still are getting what they want, at our expense.

No, what they wannt is to piss us off and rub it on our face by building it by Ground Zero and putting a tribute in to the Freedom Fighters that died for their cause on 9/11.

Yes, but any true American will be pissed wherever they put it. It dont belong in this country anywhere...ground zero or anywhere!!

I agree, but I wish they would just compromise on this one.

I don't agree. I think it should be built, or else, all religious sanctuaries of any faith need to be removed from the area.

Ya'll want to go back to the Founding Fathers and their views but put restrictions on those views. Freedom of religion means any religion, good bad or ugly, whether ya'll agree with it or not.

I know several "soldiers" who are Christian who want desparately to blitz this country because it's not Christian enough. I would say there's plenty of Christian training camps in this country ready and willing to do damage, but they haven't started yet. I recall the OKC bombing being an effect of a Christian man who was offended by the government and took it out on innocent men, women and children.

I remember people saying he wasn't really a Christian because Christians don't do that... Gosh, but that sounds like Muslims proclaiming the jihadists aren't really Muslims because Muslims don't do that.

So tell me, what's the difference between the two?

I am ok with it being built, just not where they wanna build it because it's just a provocation.