Protesters Enter Apple Stores Around the World on iPhone 16 Launch Day

On Friday, customers around the world flocked to Apple Stores to buy the iPhone 16 on its launch day. But customers in more than a dozen cities were met with protests organized by current and former Apple employees.

The protesters—carrying signs and placards saying Apple is “profiting from genocide”—demanded that Apple stop extracting its cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mining is notorious for dangerous conditions, low wages, frequent child labor and exploitation. violation of human rights.

Apple said it does not source minerals from mines where these conditions occur, although it said there are “challenges” in tracking its mineral supply chains. By 2022, this tracking led the company to remove 12 suppliers. The Congolese government recently questioned the company about possible “blood minerals” in its supply system.

Protesters also told Apple to break its silence on the ongoing war in Gaza, which is being called genocide by some human rights experts.

The protests, which took place in 10 countries, were organized mainly by Apples Against Apartheid, a group of five current Apple employees and a dozen former Apple employees. They primarily hold sales roles at Apple stores.

The group, originally called Apples4Ceasefire, has partnered with Friends of the Congo and local activist groups in cities around the world. Posts on social media show protesters holding banners outside Apple stores in Bristol, Reading, London, Tokyo, Brussels, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Montreal, and Cardiff. In the United States, protests took place at Apple’s Fifth Avenue Manhattan store, as well as in Palo Alto and Berkeley.

Many of these demonstrations had only a few participants, often waving large flags and large flags of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Palestine. Most of the protesters in person were not Apple employees.

The largest number of people who attended the demonstration was in Berlin, where more than a dozen people took part in the demonstration. They sang behind a barricade, which kept them away from the Apple Store. Footage shows police directing protesters away, and arresting a person wearing a keffiyeh. Tariq Ra’Ouf, lead organizer of Apples Against Apartheid, tells WIRED that five protesters have been arrested.

Ra’Ouf worked at the Seattle Apple Store for 12 years before being fired in July. They say they were fired for a “technicality” that they believe “should have been a warning for misconduct.” They believe their dismissal may be in retaliation for publicly challenging the company for its “bias and discrimination against the Palestinian people.” Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the protest or Ra’Ouf’s allegations.

“The idea is that we want to bring this to them as consumers, so we want to disrupt their biggest day of the year as much as we can,” Ra’Ouf tells WIRED. “We want [them] to check how much money they make on the day of the launch, and how many phones they are able to sell, and clearly show them that there is a lot of support from these communities that they just ignore.”