WASHINGTON: Demonstrators occupied the office of company president Brad Smith in an ongoing protest against the American technology company Microsoft’s ties with the Israeli Defence Forces.
Police have arrested seven people, including former and current Microsoft employees, according to the Associated Press news agency. A report published in the British newspaper claimed that Israel used Microsoft’s cloud computing platform called Azure to target Palestinian targets, but the company said it was reviewing the report.
No Azure for Apartheid, a group that opposes the use of the Azure platform for racial discrimination, has been protesting against the company for several months. Amid protests,18 people were arrested in a demonstration outside Microsoft’s headquarters last week.
In May, Microsoft fired an employee who disrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella, and in April, it fired two employees who disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration. The group has called on the company to end ties with Israel and pay compensation to Palestinians.
The Guardian newspaper reported that the Israeli Defence Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Microsoft said it had hired an external law firm to investigate the allegations, but its terms of service prohibit such use. “There are many things we can’t do to change the world, but we will do what we can and what we must,” company President Brad Smith said during a media briefing Tuesday after the recent arrests.
He said that they will ensure human rights principles and our terms of service are implemented by all our customers everywhere and around the world.”
A few hours after his office was infiltrated and occupied by a group protesting Microsoft’s technology contracts with Israel, the company’s president, Brad Smith, stood beside his desk addressing a hastily called press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Of the seven people involved in the occupation, two of them were current Microsoft employees, and one was a former Google employee, Smith said — seeking to underscore the company’s position that the group, No Azure for Apartheid, does not represent its workforce.
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