A young Queens woman who was photographed wearing her hijab in a Starbucks is suing the photographer and the Associated Press after the picture showed up alongside a controversial anti-hijab opinion piece in the Washington Post.
Fifi Youssef, 22, of Glendale says in court papers that she never gave photographer Mark Lennihan permission to take the picture on Dec. 16, 2015 when she took a break from work in a local Starbucks and she never gave her permission to AP to sell the photo to the Post.
The article encouraged women to not wear their hijabs, arguing against a proposed "Wear a Hijab" day which is supposed to show that women are in "solidarity with the ideology".
"Stand with us instead with moral courage against the ideology of Islamism that demands we cover our hair," says the opinion piece that ran in the Post on Dec. 21.
MUSLIM WOMAN KICKED OUT OF DONALD TRUMP RALLY FOR SILENT PROTEST[1]
Youssef's Manhattan Supreme Court suit says the article "attacks (her) fundamental beliefs, and by Defendants' actions, her image was thrust into the piece."
Youssef's lawyer, Daniel Szalkiewicz, says that selling someone's image without their permission is a violation of New York State's civil rights law.
In this case, court papers say, AP, a wire service that provides news and photos to companies around the world, put Lennihan's photo into its data base for use by anyone who wanted to pay for it. Lennihan, a Brooklyn resident, is a photo editor for AP.
TENURED WHEATON COLLEGE PROFESSOR PUT ON LEAVE AFTER WEARING HIJAB[2]
Youssef, who was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump last fall when the presidential candidate proposed to stop all Muslims at the border, referred questions to her lawyer who did not return a phone call.
Last fall, Youssef told Time Warner Cable's NY1 on Trump: "I don't believe that he understands what America is founded on or he lost the vision of the American dream and what we are."
The AP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
References
- ^ MUSLIM WOMAN KICKED OUT OF DONALD TRUMP RALLY FOR SILENT PROTEST (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ TENURED WHEATON COLLEGE PROFESSOR PUT ON LEAVE AFTER WEARING HIJAB (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ lawsuits (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ media (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ supreme court (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ religion (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ donald trump ( www.nydailynews.com)
