Microsoft has temporarily locked down a building at its headquarters after protesters managed to get inside the office of the company’s president. Current and former Microsoft workers held a sit-in protest inside Brad Smith’s office in Building 34, demanding that the company cut ties with the Israeli government.
The protesters live streamed themselves on Twitch entering Building 34, a building that houses Microsoft executives, and heading to Smith’s office, before unfurling banners during the sit-in protest. “Brad Smith you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide!” shouted some of the protesters inside Smith’s office. Noisemakers were also been attached to balloons in the entrance of Building 34. One notice reads “The People’s Court Summons Bradford Lee Smith on Charges of Crimes Against Humanity.”
Abdo Mohamed, a No Azure for Apartheid organizer and former tech worker fired by Microsoft, confirmed to The Verge that Microsoft employees Riki Fameli and Anna Hattle are part of today’s sit-in protest, alongside former Microsoft employees Vaniya Agrawal, Hossam Nasr, and Joe Lopez.
This latest protest comes less than a week after a Microsoft employee was arrested at the company’s headquarters. Anna Hattle, a Microsoft software engineer, was arrested along with former Microsoft workers Agrawal, Nasr, and Lopez last week after Redmond police claimed some protestors “became aggressive” during a protest at a plaza in Microsoft’s headquarters.
The No Azure for Apartheid group has been organizing a series of protests over Microsoft’s cloud contracts with the Israeli government in recent months. A former Microsoft employee disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary event and called Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman a “war profiteer.” Microsoft’s three CEOs were also interrupted by another former Microsoft employee during the same event. The group also disrupted Microsoft’s Build conference earlier this year multiple times, and Microsoft even blocked emails that contain “Palestine” after these employee protests.
The Guardian, in partnership with +972 Magazine and Local Call, published an investigation earlier this month which revealed that the Israeli government is relying on Microsoft’s cloud services to store recordings and data of up to “a million calls an hour” made by Palestinians.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment on this latest protest inside the company’s own offices, but the company didn’t respond in time for publication.
