Yemeni Bodega Owners Form Coalition To Boycott NY Post

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A group representing 5,000 Yemeni bodega owners stood outside the Midtown Manhattan offices of News Corp Tuesday and announced the formation of a coalition to boycott the New York Post.

Nine-hundred members of the Yemeni American Merchants Association — a group formed following President Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban — stopped selling the Post following an April 11 cover that depicted the burning towers of the World Trade Center and a statement made by Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The headline read: "Here's your something 2,977 people dead by terrorism."

The cover was "irresponsible, dehumanizing and dangerous" Yemeni American Merchants Association public relations director Youssef Mubarez said Tuesday. Mubarez said the cover took Omar's statements about the 9/11 attacks made during a March address at the Council on American-Islamic Relations out of context, putting Muslims all around the United States at danger of anti-Muslim harassment and hate crimes.

Tuesday marked the 30th day of the Yemeni American Merchants Association boycott of the tabloid, which is known for its punchy covers and its penchant to stray from the politically correct. The boycott has resulted in 9,000 fewer sales of the paper daily and an estimated loss of $270,000, Yemeni American Merchants Association Dr. Debbie Almontaser said Tuesday.

"The Yemeni-American bodegas who are boycotting are doing it with great pride. They don't need money from a hate manufacturer, so we are proud to actually be losing that funding and costing the New York Post," Almontaser said Tuesday.

A request for comment from the New York Post was not immediately returned.

Almontaser added that the Yemeni American Merchants Association will attempt to get all 5,000 of its members to stop selling the New York Post and will ramp up efforts to convince bodega owners of all backgrounds to take a stand against the paper. Almontaser said the April 11 cover was just the latest example of racist coverage by the paper, citing the Post's coverage of the Central Park 5, specifically 2014 editorial advocating against a city settlement with the wrongly-imprisoned teens, a 2009 cartoon depicting President Barack Obama as an ape and a 2014 cover depicting Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka as a Japanese kamikaze pilot with the headline "$155M Bronx Bomber."

The Yemeni American Merchants Association has a list of four demands related to the New York Post, Youssef Mubarez said Tuesday:

1. A public apology to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and all Muslim-Americans for the April 11 cover;
2. More responsible reporting from the paper going forward;
3. The firing of editor in chief Steven Lynch;
4. A demand that elected officials stop giving the New York Post a platform until the other demands are met.

Hawk Newsome, an activist with Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, said his group is standing with the Yemeni American Merchants Association in its boycott because of what calls the paper's "hatred of black people." Other advocacy groups such as Rise and Resist, the Council on American–Islamic Relations and the Campaign to Take on Hate will also join the boycott coalition.

Black Lives Matter of Greater New York is not affiliated with the national Black Lives Matter movement.

The New York Post's April 11 cover was a reference to a statement made by Omar to the Council on American–Islamic Relations in March. During the 20-minute speech Omar said: “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

The statement drew widespread condemnation from members of the United States' political right for downplaying the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but Omar's supporters said the comments were taken out of context.