Dear Apple: Don’t Work With Russian Company Whose Creative Director Advocates “Burning Gays in Ovens”

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=60772606&src=id">1000 Words</a>/Shutterstock

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Sunday, a coalition of over 15 Russian LGBT organizations encouraged Apple to avoid business dealings with Euroset, the largest phone retailer in Russia, whose creative director gained recent notoriety for wanting to shove all gay people “alive into an oven.”

Ivan Okhlobystin, who stars on a Scrubs-like sitcom in addition to working for Euroset, also compared homosexuality to fascism and declared it an “overt sign of mental abnormality” at a “spiritual talk” in Novosibirsk last month. He later confirmed his comments on Twitter, suggesting his anti-gay stance would draw customers to Euroset stores for a “good mood.”

In an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook dated January 5, the LGBT rights coalition emphasized the dangerous potential of hate speech in an already volatile environment: “[Okhlobystin’s] statements have been enthusiastically published by the Kremlin’s propaganda press and distributed across entire Russia just adding additional fuel to the rampant homophobic campaign that already resulted in at least 26 murders and countless hate crimes against Russian LGBT population [sic].”

The letter calls on Cook to “set Apple as an example of a corporate citizen who supports basic human rights.”

Activists are turning to Western suppliers like Apple after getting little response from Okhlobystin’s employer. Six LGBT rights organizations wrote to Euroset President Alexander Malis on December 26, asking him to “clarify how [Okhlobystin’s] views are aligned with the values and principals of Euroset company, and to make a statement on inadmissibility of bullying and violence based on prejudice.”

Malis told Russian newspaper Izvestia that “Ivan expressed his personal opinion, and we will not fire him for that. Of course, we are against burning anyone in furnaces.”

The coalition plans to reach out to other Western mobile phone companies doing business with Euroset. Current suppliers for the company include Google and Samsung.

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment on its relationship with Euroset or its plans for addressing the letter’s concerns. In September, the two companies were negotiating iPhone sales, and in late October, Euroset began selling iPhones in some of its Russian stores.

Read the coalition’s full letter below:

 
letter to Apple

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate