Retail giant Zara 'regrets' offensive comments following days of boycott calls

After head designer of the women’s department at Zara made anti-Palestinian comments, the retail giant has responded.

Fashion retail giant Zara has slammed racist and anti-Palestinian comments made by its head designer for the retailer’s women’s department, Vanessa Perilman.

On Tuesday, Zara’s parent company Inditex said it “does not accept any lack of respect to any culture, religion, country, race or belief.”

“Zara is a diverse company and we shall never tolerate discrimination of any kind,” said the company in a statement.

“We condemn these comments that do not reflect our core values of respect for one another, and we regret the offence that they have caused,” the statement added.

However, Inditex did not mention any plans to fire or reprimand the Perilman.

Read also: Calls to boycott Zara after designer’s anti-Palestine tirade

The statement was triggered days after social media users called to boycott fast-fashion giant Zara in response to alleged racist remarks by Perilman.

Perilman made the comments to respond to Instagram stories by Palestinian model Qaher Harhash’s who detailed the injustices his people suffer under Israeli occupation.

“So your point is that you are trying to show the world that Israel is a horrible evil country that does terrible things to Palestinians? Omg I want to vomit. This is so unfair and such lies,” Perilman wrote, according to a screenshot shared by the Palestinian model.

“Maybe if your people were educated then they wouldn’t blow up hospitals and schools that Israel helped to pay for in Gaza,” she added.

Perilman went on to portray Palestinian parents and their children as the perpetrators of violence in the occupied land, saying that Israelis “do not teach their children to throw stones”.

Shortly after the message was shared, Perilman directly messaged the Palestinian model to say she was receiving “death threats” while continuing to defend her statements and saying that she is “not ignorant”.

The designer later deleted her Instagram account and other social media pages following the backlash, with many filing complaints to Zara for the statements made.

Although she later apologised, her apology was placed under scrutiny by many online.

“It was obvious she apologised because she felt threatened by people messaging her and calling out her ignorance,” Harhash wrote on Instagram on Sunday.

Follow Doha News on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube