A protest is planned Saturday at a Chicago Apple store where workers say managers disciplined staff—and fired an employee—for wearing pins, bracelets, or keffiyeh in support of Palestinian people.

Nearly 300 current and former Apple employees have published an open letter alleging that several retail and corporate employees of the company have been disciplined or “wrongfully terminated” for expressing support for Palestinian people through pins, bracelets, or keffiyeh.

The group, which calls itself Apples4Ceasefire, is planning a protest outside Apple’s retail store in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Saturday. In a podcast published last week with media outlet Palestine in America, the group alleges a Palestinian retail employee at that location was wrongly fired for wearing clothing and accessories showing support for Palestinian people. The podcast episode also elaborates on allegations made in the letter, making detailed claims about multiple Apple employees experiencing retaliation from managers.

Apple did not respond for comment in time for publication.

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Business Insider reported in November that Apple had moved to quell internal friction over the Israel-Hamas war, deleting Slack posts about the conflict and “pausing" Slack channels for Jewish and Muslim employees.

Apples4Ceasefire claims in the podcast episode that the Palestinian retail employee in Lincoln Park fired by Apple for showing visible support for Palestinians is Madly (pronounced “medley”) Espinoza. In the episode, she says that she asked multiple Apple managers if it would be an issue for her to wear a keffiyeh to work. “The answer was no, as long as it wasn’t covering my Apple logo, anything that would show I’m an Apple employee,” Espinoza says on the podcast, so she began wearing it.

A few weeks later, she claims, management changed its stance and asked her not to wear the keffiyeh anymore, issuing a disciplinary document stating that wearing one violates store policy. Espinoza alleges that she asked management multiple times to identify those policies but did not receive an answer.

Espinoza claims on the podcast that she stopped wearing the keffiyeh but wore pro-Palestinian jewelry instead after seeking approval to do so from management. She says she got approval and received no further written warnings about her behavior or performance at work.

Around this time, many others at the Lincoln Park store also began wearing jewelry showing support for Palestinians, like bracelets with watermelons or phrases like “Free Gaza,” Ra’ouf, the Apples4Ceasefire organizer says. He says that shortly before Espinoza was fired about 40 Lincoln Park employees were verbally reprimanded by management for wearing the bracelets.

Espinoza was fired on March 6, Palestine in America says. She claims that her termination documents did not specify a reason, but in her podcast appearance she alleged that management verbally said that her actions were “too political” and constituted “a harmful environment.” [...]