CNN host Fareed Zakaria has returned an award he received to the Anti-Defamation League objecting to the group’s opposition to building a mosque near ground zero.
Zakaria, also a Newsweek columnist, had received the ADL’s Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize in 2005.
In a public letter to Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, issued last week, Zakaria said, “I cannot in good conscience hold onto the award or the honorarium that came with it and am returning both. I hope that it might add to the many voices that have urged you to reconsider and reverse your position on this issue. This decision will haunt the ADL for years if not decades to come.
“Whether or not the center is built, what is at stake here is the integrity of the ADL and its fidelity to its mission. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain your reputation.”
ADL issued a statement late last month decrying the bigotry surrounding the proposed Muslim center, but opposing the construction out of sensitivity to families who lost loved ones on 9/11. — jta