Dozens of Microsoft employees occupied the company’s east campus in Redmond, Washington to protest against what they say is the use of its software by the Israeli military to carry out operations in Gaza and enable the surveillance of Palestinians.
Less than a week after the company said it was launching an independent investigation into the use of its Azure software, current and former staff occupied a space they declared the “Free Zone”, holding placards that read “Join The Worker Intifada – No Labor for Genocide” and “Martyred Palestinian Children’s Plaza”.
The protests, organised by the No Azure for Genocide group, has demanded Microsoft divest from Israel. Earlier this year, employee Joe Lopez interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella at the annual developer conference.
“Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians,” said Lopez.
Demonstrator Hossam Nasr said on Tuesday they had decided to escalate their actions because there had been no adequate response from Microsoft.
He felt personally motivated to speak out more vigorously after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out the targeted killing of the high-profile Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, one of five members of the media who was killed earlier this month in the operation.
“I watched him report on Gaza relentlessly, through starvation, through extermination campaigns, through bombing. He was the voice of the business. He was intentionally targeted,” said Nasr, 26, who worked for Microsoft for three years but was fired last year after organising a vigil for Palestine outside the company’s offices.
“It happened the same week news came out from the Guardian that Microsoft is storing mass surveillance data collected from calls from Palestinians.”
Earlier this month, the Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, revealed Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, was making use of Azure to store countless recordings of mobile phone calls made by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the Seattle convention center in May. Photograph: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images
The company said it was not aware “of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft’s services”.
The protest at Microsoft comes against the backdrop of increased warnings from organisations such as the UN about “widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease” in Gaza. The Gaza health ministry has estimated at least 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its operations in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attacks.
Nasreen Jaradat, 29, a Microsoft employee, said: “Every single second that we wait, things are worse and worse in Palestine.”
She added: “People are getting hungrier and hungrier. More and more people are being bombed and maimed. It’s time for us to escalate, however we can.”
The protest ended after about two hours when police told the demonstrators to leave and said they would be arrested for trespassing.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the group of demonstrators “was asked to leave, and they left”.
The spokesperson said it had nothing to add to a statement made last week about an inquiry it had undertaken into allegations Azure was being used to surveil Palestinians.
“Based on these reviews, including interviewing dozens of employees and assessing documents, we have 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,” it said.
Microsoft employs as many as 47,000 people at Redmond. While some took the flyers handed out on Tuesday by the activists and read them, others continued to tuck into their lunches in the restaurants that surrounded the square.
One 28-year-old employee who was watching the protests said he sympathised with the demonstrators but did not think they would have much impact.
“I don’t think it will,” said the man, who asked not to be named.
The demonstrators say their efforts are part of a process to educate people.
“I think we are inspiring conversation among the people who work at Microsoft to feel more comfortable talking about this with each other and about how their work is contributing to genocide,” said another employee, Julius Shan, 28.
People are still learning how the company is linked to genocide, he said. “But that’s the nature of learning new information.”