The New York Daily News is taking heat over a photograph it published showing the scantily clad derrieres of two women it claimed attended the city's Puerto Rican Day Parade, but who were not actually part of the event, the rival New York Post reported.

The picture, which the tabloid featured under the headline "Rear view on parade," showed two topless women, one of whom was carrying a Puerto Rican flag. Its caption suggested that the two were photographed at the parade, "when in fact they were in a another part of the city," according to Latino Rebels.

The National Puerto Rican Day Parade (NPRDP), which organizes the traditional event held annually in New York, demanded a reaction from the newspaper. The group's chair, Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, decried the New York Daily News' attitude in a lengthy letter to the newspaper's chief executive, Bill Holiber.

"We demand an immediate, front-page apology and a statement that clearly communicates these ladies were not participating in the parade in tomorrow's edition of the New York Daily News," Cortés-Vázquez wrote. "Furthermore, we expect accurate coverage the reflects the dignified, respectful and positive celebration that actually took place, yesterday, and we expect that your company take the necessary measures to guarantee this type of error will never happen again."

Community leader Rich Villar, similarly said that Puerto Ricans would insist on being accurately portrayed in New York media; in a Sofrito for Your Soul essay, he echoed Cortés-Vázquez's demand for a "full apology" from the Daily News.

"Every time you dehumanize us, we will demand our humanity," Villar said. "Every time you force a negative image onto our social media feeds, we will respond with poems by (Puerto Rican) poets. Every time you try to sell newspapers with controversial uses of our national flag, we will meet you outside your offices with that same flag flying."

The New York Daily News, for its part, published a number of reader comments on its website.

"As a longtime reader, I was perturbed that of all that was beautiful in the Puerto Rican Day Parade, all the Daily News could find was this deplorable photo to depict what the celebration was all about," reader Anna York criticized.