Protests close Washington Apple Store during peak Black Friday rush

AppleInsider

Protestors alleging that Apple is complicit in child labor abuse blocked the University Village Apple Store in Seattle, Washington, causing Apple to close it early on Black Friday.

University Village Apple Store -- image credit: Apple

Apple's Black Friday sales were reportedly disrupted by protestors concerned with both Democratic Republic of Congo and Palestinian causes. According to Seattle, Washington local news station KomoNews, Apple ultimately closed its store and police warned remaining protestors that they were now trespassing.

Protest at the Apple store in U Village, the store has now shut down on Black Friday and protestors say they've been trespassed and told if they don't leave they will be arrested @komonews pic.twitter.com/ZcgRTlpzjx

-- Lynnanne Nguyen (@LynnanneNguyen)

November 29, 2024

"This is the biggest shopping days of the year," protestor Flowers Smith told the station. "It's the biggest day for consumers and the day they make the most money off the hands of people as young as 5-years-old in the mines."

"So it's a day we can strike back and say we're not gonna stand for this," continued Smith.

The protest follows one in April 2024 that also saw an Apple Store being forced to close. In that case it was the Lincoln Park Apple Store in Chicago, and the protest was in part over Apple's alleged disciplining of at least one employee wearing pro-Palestinian clothing items.

At the same time, the Democratic Republic of Congo claimed that Apple has been sourcing 3T materials -- tin, tungsten, and tantalum -- from regions that meant it was funding violent groups. Apple has previously denied this.

The report does not say how many protestors there were at University Village Apple Store. One brief video from the station appears to show no more than six people outside the store, while another shows perhaps eight.

One of those videos claims that the protestors were packing up to leave at 3pm local time. It's not clear whether this was because the store was closed, nor whether it was later reopened.

Apple University Village was due to be open until 8pm local time.

The current store was opened in 2018, following construction that lasted over a year. At the time, it was 200 feet away from a Microsoft Store, although Microsoft subsequently abandoned retail stores entirely in 2020.



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blastdoor

I’d love to know if Flowers et al voted in the presidential election and for whom. If they didn’t vote sensibly then I can’t take them seriously.

hexclock

blastdoor said:

I’d love to know if Flowers et al voted in the presidential election and for whom. If they didn’t vote sensibly then I can’t take them seriously.

I’m guessing Flowers voted for the woman who didn’t earn a single primary vote. 

12Strangers

hexclock said:

blastdoor said:

I’d love to know if Flowers et al voted in the presidential election and for whom. If they didn’t vote sensibly then I can’t take them seriously.

I’m guessing Flowers voted for the woman who didn’t earn a single primary vote. 

I’m guessing you don’t understand how political parties select their candidates.

OriginalAppleGuy

"So it's a day we can strike back and say we're not gonna stand for this," continued Smith.

THEN DON'T BUY THE PRODUCTS!!!!!!

How about that for a protest? 

JinTech

OriginalAppleGuy said:

"So it's a day we can strike back and say we're not gonna stand for this," continued Smith.

THEN DON'T BUY THE PRODUCTS!!!!!!

How about that for a protest? 

Right? Find me one phone manufacturer that’s made entirely free of any kind of “slave” labor and that doesn’t use any rare earth elements. 

Xed

hexclock said:

blastdoor said:

I’d love to know if Flowers et al voted in the presidential election and for whom. If they didn’t vote sensibly then I can’t take them seriously.

I’m guessing Flowers voted for the woman who didn’t earn a single primary vote. 

Lay off the conspiracy websites. It's very easy to lookup that Vice President Kamala Harris has won enough votes from Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination for president. You can even look up the Democratic National Committee Chair, Jaime Harrison, to see that she made that very statement back on August 2nd.

darelrex

Apple's probably doing more than any other tech company to not be complicit in child labor abuse — but you can't protest at the slick Dell store because, uh, it doesn't exist.

Cesar Battistini Maziero

These people need jail time. 

zeus423

Cesar Battistini Maziero said:

These people need jail time. 

Or a job. Then they wouldn't have time to protest.