Vendors of Apple products in Iran on Saturday scoffed at U.S. media reports that the consumer technology giant was banning U.S. sales to customers of Iranian background, pointing out that iPads and iPhones are widely available in Tehran.
One salesman who gave only his first name, Hossein, told AFP that he had sold 40 iPhones the day before, and explained that prices for Apple items in Iran were only around $50-$60 more than in the United States.
Traders were easily getting around U.S. sanctions on the export of popular electronic items to Iran, he said.
“All Apple products are smuggled into Iran. Before, it was mainly from Dubai and European countries, but now we can get all we need from Iraq,” he said. “We have all of Apple’s products.”
Iranian media noted reports from the United States that a young American woman of Iranian descent, who was speaking Farsi with her uncle, was barred from buying an iPad from an Apple store in the U.S. state of Georgia. She reportedly wanted to send the iPad to Iran as a gift to cousin.
“When we said, ‘Farsi, I’m from Iran,’ he said, ‘I just can’t sell this to you. Our countries have bad relations,’”, Sahar Sabet told WSBTV. The store’s manager later showed a local TV channel a copy of Apple’s policy, which prohibits the export, sale or supply of Apple products to Iran without explicit government approval.
An Apple representative reportedly later apologized to Sabet and told her she could buy the iPad through the company’s online store. Apple maintains 363 retail stores in 13 countries.
But salesmen in Tehran said the restriction is pointless, given the unimpeded offer of Apple and other U.S. brand electronics. Several shops are even dressed up to look like official Apple Stores.
In the United States, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) issued a statement calling on Apple “to take immediate steps” to make sure the U.S. sanctions do not discriminate against Iranian-Americans and Iranians in the United States.
“The Iranian-American community is deeply concerned and outraged that Apple employees at different Apple stores have repeatedly refused to sell products to customers solely on the basis of their Persian ethnicity,” the letter from NIAC President Dr. Trita Parsi said.
The letter calls on Apple CEO Tim Cook to immediately intervene to improve the training of Apple store employees “to ensure such discrimination does not continue.”
Banned from buying an iPad
According to WSBTV, Saber’s case wasn’t the first time an American citizen has been banned from buying Apple products because of their ethnicity.
Another customer, Zack Jafarzadeh, told the channel that staff at the
Apple Store in Atlanta’s Perimeter Mall had refused to sell him an iPhone because he had an Iranian background and was with a friend studying in the U.S. on an Iranian visa.
Jafarzadeh, who is from Virginia, said no one asked him whether the phone was being taken back to Iran, they only asked where he was from.
“We never talked to him about going back to Iran. I’m appalled,” he said.
“I would say if you’re trying to buy an iPhone, don’t tell them anything about Iran. That would be your best bet.”
The U.S. embargo against Iran doesn’t apply to American companies selling their products in the U.S. to individuals intending to use those products there.
“There’s absolutely no U.S. law that would prohibit Apple or any other company from selling its product in the United States to anyone intending to use their product in the United States, including Iranians or Persian speakers,” State Department representative Noel Clay said Friday.
(Additional writing by Sara Ghasemilee)
By AlArabiya with AFP