On Friday, customers around the world flocked to Apple Stores to buy the iPhone 16 on launch day. But customers in more than a dozen cities were met with protests organized by current and former Apple employees.
The protesters, who held signs and banners saying that Apple is “profiting from genocide,” demanded that Apple stop Getting your cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there are mines famous for dangerous conditions, low wages, frequent use of child labor and Human rights violations.
Apple has said it does not source minerals from mines where these conditions exist, although has said that there are “challenges” in monitoring their mineral supply chains. In 2022, this monitoring led the company to Eliminate 12 suppliers. Government of the Congo recently questioned the company in relation to possible “blood minerals” in its supply chain.
The protesters also called on Apple to break its silence on the ongoing war in Gaza, which has been called genocide by some human rights experts.
The protests, which took place in 10 countries, were organized primarily by Apples Against Apartheid, a group of five current Apple employees and about a dozen former Apple employees. These employees have primarily held retail sales roles at Apple stores.
The group, originally called Apples4Ceasefire, partnered with the Friends of the Congo organization and local activist groups in cities around the world. Social media posts show protesters holding signs outside Apple stores in Bristol board, ReadingLondon, Tokyo, BrusselsCape Town, AmsterdamMexico City, MontrealIn the United States, there were protests at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, as well as in Palo Alto and Berkeley.
Many of these protests involved only a few demonstrators, often waving large banners and flags of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Palestine. Most of the protesters who turned out in person were not Apple employees.
The largest turnout was in Berlin, where more than three dozen people took part in the protest. Protesters chanted slogans from behind a barricade that distanced them from the Apple store. Footage shows police officers directing protesters into the distance and detaining one person wearing a kufiya. Tariq Ra’Ouf, one of the lead organizers of Apples Against Apartheid, told WIRED that five protesters were arrested.
Ra’Ouf worked at a Seattle Apple store for 12 years before being fired in July. They say they were fired on a “technicality” that they believe “should have been a warning for misconduct.” They believe his firing was likely retaliation for publicly challenging the company over “anti-Palestinian bias and racism.” Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the protest or Ra’Ouf’s allegation.
“The idea is to bring this to them as consumers, and so we want to disrupt their biggest day of the year as much as we can,” Ra’Ouf tells WIRED. “We want them to evaluate how much money they make on launch day and how many phones they can sell, and really show them in a visible way that there is a lot of support for these communities that they are just ignoring.”