{"id":1563,"date":"2025-01-17T09:33:59","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T08:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2025-01-17T09:33:59","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T08:33:59","slug":"la-rdc-porte-plainte-contre-apple-en-france-et-en-belgique-pour-achat-de-minerais-illegalement-exploites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/2025\/01\/17\/la-rdc-porte-plainte-contre-apple-en-france-et-en-belgique-pour-achat-de-minerais-illegalement-exploites\/","title":{"rendered":"The DRC files a criminal lawsuit against Apple in France and Belgium for buying illegally mined minerals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The December 17, 2024<\/a>, the Congolese state filed a criminal lawsuit against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium, accusing<\/a> the tech giant of using minerals illegally mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in its supply chain. The charges include tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, mined in the east of the country<\/strong>, a region marked by decades of armed conflict and massive human rights violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to lawyers representing the DRC<\/a>, these minerals, often referred to as \u201cconflict minerals\u201d, are mined under inhumane conditions, involving forced child labor and local communities forced to work<\/strong> under threat from armed groups<\/a>. Once mined, these minerals are said to transit through neighboring Rwanda, where they are \u201claundered\u201d before entering global supply chains. These practices directly fuel the cycles of violence in Eastern Congo<\/strong>, exacerbating an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These charges include concealment of war crimes<\/strong>, laundering of conflict minerals<\/strong> and deceptive commercial practices<\/strong> aimed at reassuring consumers. The DRC's lawyers rely on reports from the UN<\/a> andl NGOs<\/a> to assert that Apple was aware of the violations linked to its supplies. Last April, the DRC had already served formal notice<\/a> on Apple, without obtaining a satisfactory response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple contests<\/a> these allegations<\/strong>, claiming to have suspended all direct sourcing of minerals from the region and to be using recycled materials. However, these measures are deemed insufficient by the Congolese authorities, who denounce a lack of transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This litigation is part of a series of actions against multinationals for human rights violations linked to the exploitation of natural resources in the DRC<\/strong>. In 2019, a complaint was filed on behalf of 14 Congolese families against Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla, accused of benefiting from forced child labor in the cobalt mine. Although the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the companies, dismissing the plaintiffs' appeal, the latter have announced their intention to continue the fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This case reflects This case reflects a growing mobilization against abuses by companies exploiting precious minerals.<\/strong>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le 17 d\u00e9cembre 2024, l\u2019\u00c9tat congolais a d\u00e9pos\u00e9 des plaintes p\u00e9nales en France et en Belgique contre les filiales d\u2019Apple, accusant le g\u00e9ant de la technologie d\u2019utiliser dans sa cha\u00eene d\u2019approvisionnement des minerais exploit\u00e9s ill\u00e9galement en R\u00e9publique d\u00e9mocratique du Congo (RDC). Ces accusations visent notamment l\u2019\u00e9tain, le tantale, le tungst\u00e8ne et l\u2019or, extraits dans l\u2019Est […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237390538,"featured_media":1575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6325],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peYfbV-pd","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/justiceexpeerience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/IMGP0244.jpg?fit=4288%2C3216&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237390538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1563"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justiceexpeerience.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}