On Tuesday, a gaggle of present and former Microsoft staff, in addition to group members, took over a plaza at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, as a part of a No Azure for Apartheid protest. They declared the world a “Liberated Zone” encampment and mentioned that they had modified its identify from East Campus Plaza to “The Martyred Palestinian Youngsters’s Plaza.” The group, which introduced and distributed footage of the takeover in a press launch, mentioned round 50 individuals have been in attendance initially of the occasion.
The protesters arrange tents and creative homages to the losses in Gaza, together with shrouds and a big plate that reads “Cease Ravenous Gaza.” Additionally they arrange a negotiating desk with an indication inviting Microsoft executives to “come to the desk” and finish the corporate’s partnership with the Israeli navy.
The group says it plans to occupy the plaza till they’re forcibly eliminated. Microsoft didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
It’s a continuation of a string of high-profile protests concentrating on Microsoft and its executives over their work with Israel. At Microsoft’s fiftieth anniversary celebration in April, a software program engineer within the firm’s AI division interrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s speech with a name to cease permitting the Israeli navy to make use of the corporate’s AI merchandise. At one other Microsoft occasion the identical day, one other software program engineer interrupted a speech from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with an analogous protest. The corporate swiftly terminated the roles of each staff. A month later, Microsoft staff mentioned that the corporate had begun blocking Microsoft Outlook emails containing the phrases “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” “apartheid” and “IOF off Azure.”
A press launch by No Azure for Apartheid, the Microsoft division of the No Tech for Apartheid group, known as the motion the “largest escalation concentrating on Microsoft” but. It referenced an investigation earlier this month by The Guardian in partnership with +972 Journal and Native Name, which revealed that the Israeli authorities sought to retailer recordings and knowledge of as much as “one million calls an hour” made by Palestinians. The reviews mentioned these calls had instantly formed Israel’s navy operations in Gaza and the West Financial institution.
The activists additionally circulated a document known as “We is not going to be cogs within the Israeli genocidal machine: a name for a Employee Intifada.” The doc, written by “Microsoft employees, former employees, and group members of conscience,” requires Microsoft to chop ties with Israel. It additionally calls “for an Finish to the Genocide and Compelled Hunger,” in addition to for reparations to Palestinians and to finish Microsoft’s “discrimination towards Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and pro-Palestine employees” and “shield all employees concerned in Palestinian advocacy from hurt, and harassment within the office.”
The doc requires Microsoft employees to “converse up, stroll out, protest, [and] strike.” It additionally requires employees at any firm to demand their workplaces “minimize ties and divest from all genocidal partnerships, together with any relationship your organization has with Israel or Microsoft.” For Microsoft executives, the doc affords an electronic mail tackle to contact for negotiations, in addition to a spot on the negotiating desk within the plaza.