Microsoft Activists Arrested In HQ Protest Over Israel Ties
The demonstration followed a protest Tuesday, when participants were warned to leave or face trespassing charges — and quickly did so.
Microsoft Corp. activist employees and supporters were arrested after returning to the company’s headquarters for a second day to demand that the software maker sever business ties with the Israeli military.
The demonstration followed a protest Tuesday, when participants were warned to leave or face trespassing charges — and quickly did so. When protesters gathered again Wednesday afternoon at the Redmond, Washington, headquarters, they set up tents and chanted slogans.
“Today, the group returned and engaged in vandalism and property damage,” Microsoft said in an emailed statement. “They also disrupted, harassed, and took tables and tents from local small businesses at a lunchtime farmer’s market for employees.”
Police began to clear the demonstration about an hour after it began, removing bicycles and upturned tables that had been formed into a makeshift barricade. Several protesters were led off in handcuffs and zip ties. One, who had been speaking into a bullhorn, was wrestled to the ground by police and taken away. Another protester was put in restraints and carried off.
(Image: David Ryder/Bloomberg)
A total of 18 people were arrested on charges that included trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest and obstruction, according to an email from Jill Green, a spokesperson for the Redmond Police Department.
“Microsoft deeply appreciates and supports the actions of local law enforcement officers and the Redmond Police Department,” the company said in its statement.
The employee group behind the protest, No Azure for Apartheid, wants the company to stop selling cloud services and AI tools to Israel, claiming that use of Microsoft’s products is contributing to civilian deaths in Gaza. Azure, the company’s cloud-computing division, sells on-demand software and data storage to businesses and governments around the world.
Microsoft previously fired a handful of No Azure for Apartheid organizers for holding what the company said was an unauthorized event on campus and disrupting speeches by executives.
In a blog post published in May, the company said it had “found no evidence to date that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza.”
But Microsoft said this month that it had enlisted the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct a further review after a report that Israel’s military surveillance agency intercepted millions of mobile phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and stored them on Azure servers. The data helped inform the selection of bombing targets in Gaza, according to reporting by the Guardian newspaper, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and Local Call, a Hebrew-language news site.
“As we have made clear, Microsoft is committed to its human rights standards and contractual terms of service, including in the Middle East,” the company said Wednesday. It reiterated plans for “a thorough and independent review” of the latest allegations.
