From The Daily Mail (UK)
GAP has been forced to defend its holiday campaign after anti-Muslim graffiti appeared scribbled on one of its advertisements posted in New York City’s subway system.
The subject of the racist graffiti is Waris Ahluwalia- a jewelry designer and actor who is Sikh, not Muslim.
For GAP’s holiday campaign – the theme of which is ‘make love’ – Ahluwalia, 39, poses with model and filmmaker Quentin Jones. But where the advertisement reads ‘make love’, one unknown New York vandal has crossed out ‘love’ and written in ‘bombs!’ below.
The graffiti also includes a line that reads, ‘Stop driving taxis!’
The vandalized ad was originally found and captured by New York photographer Robert Gerhardt on the downtown platform of the Buhre Avenue 6 train stop in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx.
Gerhardt forwarded the images to Muslim journalist and commentator Arsalan Iftikhar who quickly shared it with his near-40,000 cumulative followers on Twitter and Facebook.
Iftikhar told MailOnline that the photo made him want ‘the world to see how brown people are viewed in America today.’
Gerhardt’s image received a wave of responses, many of which expressed outrage over the graffiti.
‘[This] makes me very very sad. The world is becoming more hateful,’ responded one Twitter follower. ‘Sadly typical,’ replied another.
Iftikhar’s multiple Twitter dispatches were also re-tweeted by influential Muslim author and commentator Reza Aslan to more than 54,000 of Aslan’s own followers – helping draw more attention to the misinformed graffiti.
