On Friday, global customers converged on Apple Store locations to purchase the newly released iPhone 16. However, in over a dozen cities, customers were greeted by protests organized by current and former Apple employees.
The protesters wielded signs and banners accusing Apple of “profiting from genocide,” demanding that the tech giant cease sourcing its cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mines in this region are infamous for hazardous conditions, low wages, child labor, and human rights abuses.
Apple has publicly stated that it does not procure minerals from mines with such conditions, though it acknowledges the “challenges” in monitoring its mineral supply chains. This tracking process led Apple to sever ties with 12 suppliers in 2022. Recently, the government of the Congo questioned Apple regarding potential “blood minerals” in its supply chain.
In addition to their demands about cobalt, the protesters called for Apple to end its silence on the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which some human rights experts have described as genocide.
The protests spanned 10 countries, organized primarily by Apples Against Apartheid, a group comprising five current Apple employees and approximately a dozen former employees, most of whom have held retail positions at Apple Stores.
Previously known as Apples4Ceasefire, the group collaborated with Friends of the Congo and local activist organizations worldwide. Social media posts documented protest scenes outside Apple stores in cities including Bristol, Reading, London, Tokyo, Brussels, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Montreal, and Cardiff. In the United States, demonstrations occurred at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, as well as in Palo Alto and Berkeley.
Many protests were small in scale, featuring a handful of participants waving sizable banners and flags of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Palestine. Most in-person protesters were not Apple employees.
The largest protest occurred in Berlin, attracting more than three dozen participants. Protesters chanted from behind a barricade, which kept them at a distance from the Apple Store. Footage shows police directing protesters further away and arresting an individual wearing a keffiyeh. Tariq Ra’Ouf, a leading organizer for Apples Against Apartheid, informed WIRED that five protesters were arrested.
Ra’Ouf, who worked at a Seattle Apple Store for 12 years before being fired in July, claims the termination was due to a “technicality” that merited only a misconduct warning. Ra’Ouf believes the dismissal was retaliatory for publicly challenging the company on allegations of “anti-Palestinian bias and racism.” Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the protest or Ra’Ouf’s allegation.
Ra’Ouf stated, “The idea is we want to bring this to them as consumers and disrupt their biggest day of the year as much as we could. We want [them] to evaluate how much money they make on launch day, and how many phones they sell, showing visibly that there is significant support for communities they are ignoring.”
