Urban Outfitters has removed and destroyed the piles of anti-Israel magazines on the counters of its Camden store.  UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) had received several complaints from customers who were extremely distressed to face offensive messages falsely accusing Israel of genocide while shopping.

Urban Outfitters has confirmed that it did not purchase and is no way affiliated with Crack magazine, nor would it ever intentionally offer the public any materials that contained such content.

After UKLFI alerted Urban Outfitters’ head office to the stacks of magazines at each check-out counter of their Camden store, Urban Outfitters took preventative action.  It destroyed the magazines, and told UKLFI  it understands that someone placed them in the shop, completely unauthorised.

Urban Outfitters has now confirmed that it has warned staff how to respond if similar situations should arise in future.

An Urban Outfitters spokesperson told UKLFI:  “Please be assured that immediately upon discovering the pile of magazines left at the counter of our Camden store, we removed and destroyed them. Like you, we do not tolerate any speech condoning, denigrating, or impugning others.

For the avoidance of doubt, Urban Outfitters did not purchase and is in no way affiliated with Crack magazine, nor would we ever intentionally offer the public any materials that contained such content.

We have now confirmed with our store associates throughout our operations that this was an isolated incident, where it appears that an unknown third party placed them on our counter, completely unauthorised. We believe that we were not the only retailer targeted. Regardless, we have used this as a reminder to our staff as to how to properly handle these situations, should this ever occur in the future.”

A spokesperson for UKLFI said: “This is a good outcome, as many of Urban Outfitters’ customers had been very upset to see that magazine being promoted in the shop. We are very pleased that Urban Outfitters is taking a firm stance against those attempting to bring anti-Israel hatred into their stores.”