Police disperse pro-Palestinian staff protests at Microsoft HQ in Washington

Arab News

18 hours ago

WASHINGTON: Police dismantled a protest encampment set up by current and former Microsoft employees at the tech giant's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, over the company's cloud services being used by the Israeli military for surveillance operations against Palestinians.
Members of the worker-led campaign group, No Azure for Apartheid, occupied Microsoft's East Campus in Redmond on Tuesday, demanding the company end its ties with Israel. The group accused Microsoft of complicity in war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank through its support of Israeli military and intelligence operations.
'In establishing the Liberated Zone, we are liberating our workplace and reclaiming our labor by refusing to do any work that could contribute to genocide and other crimes against humanity in Palestine,' said Microsoft worker Julius Shan in a letter to the company on Tuesday.
'We choose to take this step to escalate against Microsoft's active role in powering 22 months of genocide in Palestine,' he added.
Microsoft workers occupy HQ in protest against company's ties to Israeli military. (Supplied)
The protests follow a recent investigation by The Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, which revealed that Microsoft's Azure cloud services were being used by Israeli authorities to facilitate mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The system reportedly enabled the storage of millions of daily mobile phone call recordings made by Palestinians and assisted in identifying bombing targets in Gaza.
On Friday, Microsoft said it launched an 'urgent' external inquiry into the allegations as executives denied their knowledge of the nature of Israel's use of Azure technology. In a statement, Microsoft said 'using Azure for the storage of data files of phone calls obtained through broad or mass surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank' would be prohibited by its terms of service.
Responding to the announcement, the 'No Azure for Apartheid' group described the inquiry as 'yet another tactic to delay' meeting its demands.
The group demanded that Microsoft ends sales, deals and services to all Israeli entities, call for a ceasefire and an end to the starvation in Gaza, pay reparations to the Palestinians, and end discrimination against pro-Palestinian workers.
Hossam Nasr, one of the group's organizers, told Arab News that Tuesday's encampment aimed to be reminiscent of the US student-led protests at prominent universities last year. However, police officers interrupted the protests after two hours, saying the demonstrators trespassed private property and therefore were subject to arrest.
In a statement to Arab News, a Microsoft spokesperson said: 'The group was asked to leave, and they left.'
The demonstrators moved to a nearby public sidewalk as police officers and Microsoft security dismantled the encampment activities.
In the company's plaza, demonstrators paid artistic tributes to the Palestinian victims in Gaza and held placards that read 'Join The Worker Intifada – No Labor for Genocide' targeted at Microsoft. They set up tents and a negotiation table with a large banner that read 'Microsoft Execs, Come to the Table.'
The space was also filled with shrouds symbolizing the dead in Gaza, and a large plate reading, 'Stop Starving Gaza.'
Police dismantled protest encampment set up by current and former Microsoft employees over the company's ties to Israeli military. (Supplied)
The protests come amid growing pressure on the US tech giant from Microsoft employees and investors over its ties to the Israeli military and the role its technologies have played in the 22-month war on Gaza.
Earlier in April during Microsoft's 50th anniversary celebration, an employee interrupted a panel between CEO Satya Nadella, former CEO Steve Ballmer and founder Bill Gates. Another disrupted an address from AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. Both employees were fired.
Nasr, and another organizer, Abdo Mohamed, told Arab News they were terminated for organizing what the tech giant called an 'unauthorized' vigil at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters for Palestinians killed during the war in Gaza.
In response to the mounting criticism, Microsoft launched a investigation earlier this year. In May, the company said it had 'found no evidence to date' the Israeli military had failed to comply with its terms of service or used Azure 'to target or harm people' in Gaza.
It said it provides Israel's Ministry of Defense with software, professional services, Azure cloud services, and Azure AI services such as language translation, as well as cybersecurity support, but denied these technologies are used to target civilians. However, the company acknowledged its limited visibility into how its technology is deployed on private or on-premises systems.