Police took seven individuals into custody on Tuesday following their occupation of the office belonging to Microsoft President Brad Smith in Redmond, Washington.
Organisers stated this action was part of ongoing demonstrations against the company’s connections to the Israel Defense Forces amidst the current conflict in Gaza, AP reports.
The activist coalition No Azure for Apartheid indicated that those detained included both present and past Microsoft staff members. Azure serves as Microsoft’s main cloud service, and the company has acknowledged it is examining a recent report from a British publication which suggested Israel utilised this platform to support operations against Palestinian targets.
A live broadcast showed demonstrators gathered together as law enforcement proceeded with arrests, with additional protesters visible outside the building.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Smith confirmed that two of the individuals arrested were employees of Microsoft.
This follows the arrest of eighteen people during a comparable demonstration at the corporate campus the previous week. The coalition has been organising protests for several months.
In May, Microsoft terminated an employee who disrupted a talk by CEO Satya Nadella, and in April, two others were dismissed for interrupting the company’s 50th-anniversary event.
The demands from the activists include severing all corporate connections with Israel and providing compensation to Palestinian communities.
A British newspaper reported this month that the Israel Defense Forces had employed Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store call data acquired via extensive monitoring of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Microsoft has stated it engaged an external legal firm to examine these claims, noting that such usage would violate its service agreements.
“There are many things we can’t do to change the world, but we will do what we can and what we should,” Smith told reporters at a media briefing following Tuesday’s arrests. “That starts with ensuring that our human rights principles and contractual terms of service are upheld everywhere, by all of our customers around the world.”
Earlier this year, an Associated Press investigation disclosed previously unreported information about Microsoft’s significant collaboration with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which uses Azure to process, translate, and analyse intelligence collected through broad surveillance programs. The report indicated this data could be integrated with Israel’s proprietary AI systems to assist in identifying targets.
Subsequent to this report, Microsoft announced an internal review and found no indication that its Azure services or AI tools were employed to single out or cause harm to individuals in Gaza. The company did not release the review publicly but committed to sharing factual outcomes from a further investigation prompted by the recent newspaper report once concluded.
In a statement released Tuesday, the protesting groups said the disruptions were “to protest Microsoft’s active role in the genocide of Palestinians.”