Dubai-based Landmark Group, one of the Middle East’s largest retail firms, said it was pulling Donald Trump products off its shelves in response to the Republican presidential front-runner´s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Landmark and DT Home Marks International LLC have an exclusive deal to sell Trump Home products – including lighting, mirrors, and jewellery boxes – in their Lifestyle department stores in Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“In light of the recent statements made by the presidential candidate in the US media, we have suspended sale of all products from the Trump Home décor range,” CEO Sachin Mundhwa said in an emailed statement.
The group did not give details on the value of the contract.
On Monday, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States in the most dramatic response by a candidate yet to last week’s shooting spree by a Muslim couple in California.
The call drew sharp rebuke from both the White House and other Republican presidential candidates.
Lifestyle has more than 190 stores across the Middle East, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Tanzania.
Harry Potter author, philanthropist, and inspired activist J.K. Rowling just compared GOP presidential candidate and fervent oompa loompa Donald Trump to Voldemort and, yeah, accurate.
The tragically apt comparison was made via Twitter, the Brit’s social network of choice, on Tuesday:
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t Rowling who originally made the observation; citing an article titled “Why people are calling American businessman Donald Trump Voldemort” from BBC, she said, “How horrible. Voldemort was nowhere near as bad.”
The article in question pointed out myriad tweets comparing Trump to He Who Shall Not Be Named due to a recent [baffling, concerning, 18th century] campaign statement.
As per a 7 December press release, the aspiring politician believes that Muslims should be “banned from America.”
In the release, Trump (and Trump crony colony) writes that until politicians can “figure out what is going on,” he “is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He goes on to cite several out-of-context statistics from polling data on the matter of multi-cultural violence.
This is far from the real estate mogul’s first foray into the objectionable and insulting. He also garnered mass attention after referring to Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals during a campaign speech.
As a recap, Harry Potter’s main antagonist, Voldemort, was known for his hatred and persecution of muggles (non-magical people) and “mud bloods,” or people with one magical and one non-magical parent — the minorities of the story.
In 2012, Rowling was dropped from Forbes’ billionaire list due to charitable giving. Since the massive success of her works, she’s taken vast advantage of her platform by advocating for the LGBT community, homeless children, and minority groups at large.