On Friday, global customers gathered at Apple Store locations to purchase the newly launched iPhone 16. However, in more than a dozen cities, these customers encountered protests organized by both current and former Apple employees.
The demonstrators, equipped with signs and banners declaring that Apple is “profiting from genocide,” called on the company to cease sourcing cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mines in this region are notorious for dangerous conditions, low wages, frequent child labor, and human rights violations.
Apple has stated that it does not source minerals from mines with such conditions, though it acknowledges challenges in tracking its mineral supply chains. In 2022, these challenges led Apple to sever ties with 12 suppliers. The Congolese government has recently questioned Apple regarding potential “blood minerals” in its supply chain.
The protesters also urged Apple to address the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which some human rights experts have termed a genocide.
These protests, conducted in ten countries, were primarily organized by Apples Against Apartheid—a group consisting of five current Apple employees and about a dozen former employees, mainly from retail roles in Apple Stores.
Originally named Apples4Ceasefire, the group collaborated with Friends of the Congo and local activist groups in various cities. Social media posts showed demonstrators holding banners outside Apple Stores in Bristol, Reading, London, Tokyo, Brussels, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Montreal, and Cardiff. In the United States, protests were held at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and in Palo Alto and Berkeley.
Most of these protests had few participants, often displaying large banners and flags of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Palestine. Many of the in-person protesters were not Apple employees.
The Berlin protest saw the largest turnout, with over three dozen participants. These protesters chanted behind a barricade, distanced from the Apple Store, while police directed them further away and arrested one individual wearing a keffiyeh. Tariq Ra’Ouf, a leading organizer for Apples Against Apartheid, reported that five protesters were arrested.
Ra’Ouf, who worked at a Seattle Apple Store for 12 years before being dismissed in July, claims they were fired for a “technicality” that should have warranted only a misconduct warning. Ra’Ouf suspects the dismissal was retaliatory, stemming from their public challenges to the company on anti-Palestinian bias and racism. Apple did not respond immediately to requests for comments regarding the protests or Ra’Ouf’s allegations.
Ra’Ouf explained to WIRED that the aim was to bring the issue directly to consumers and disrupt Apple’s most significant sales day. They hoped to demonstrate visibly the considerable support for the communities Apple seems to be neglecting.
