H&M has temporarily closed several stores in South Africa on Saturday after protesters vandalized some of their clothing chain’s stores over ther recent ‘racist’ hoodie advert.
Members from the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) group targeted six shops in Gauteng province.
Video posted on social media showed racks of clothes being pushed to the floor.
In one location, rubber bullets were fired to disperse demonstrators. While officers are monitoring the situation, they said they had not made any arrests so far.
The controversy began when the chain issued an image of a black child modelling a sweatshirt with the slogan “Coolest monkey in the jungle”.
Videos and photos of the gatherings showed people demonstrating outside or marching through a store. Others showed people toppling mannequins, overturning racks and scattering clothes.
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“Out of concern for the safety of our employees and customers we have temporarily closed all stores in the area,” H&M said in an emailed statement on Saturday.
“None of our staff or customers have been injured,” the statement said. “We continue to monitor the situation closely and will open the stores as soon as the situation is safe again. We strongly believe that racism and bias in any shape or form, deliberate or accidental, are simply unacceptable. We stress that our wonderful store staff had nothing to do with our poorly judged product and image.”
