ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100037
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The company said it caught the problem six months ago, long before the shoes went into production.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded Wednesday that Nike Inc. apologize for using a logo on athletic shoes that resembles the word ``Allah'' in the Arabic script.
``Allah'' is Arabic for God, used by Muslim and Christian Arabs to refer to the deity.
Nike said the logo was meant to look like flames for a line of shoes to be sold this summer with the names Air Bakin', Air Melt, Air Grill and Air B-Que.
The company said it caught the problem six months ago, long before the shoes went into production. A new logo separates the A in ``AIR'' from the IR, Nike spokeswoman Vizhier Corpuz said.
``We absolutely regret any misunderstanding, and we regret that this appeared in retail stores,'' Corpuz said at Nike headquarters near Portland, Ore. ``We have changed the design to ensure that there's no confusion between the word `air' and any other word.''
The Islamic council's executive director, Nihad Awad, insisted at a Washington news conference that the shoes have been seen at stores across the country, one pair in New Jersey as recently as Tuesday.
Holding up a pair of black-and-white Nikes with the logo, which he said were bought recently in the Boston area, Awad demanded that the company investigate to determine whether ``there are people at the company who want to insult Muslims.''
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB