Microsoft employee protests lead to 18 arrests as company reviews its work with Israel’s military

The police arrested 18 people during demonstrations led by workers at Microsoft headquarters on Wednesday while the technological company promises an “urgent” examination of the use of its technology by the Israeli army during the current war in Gaza.

Two consecutive days of protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, called on the technology giant to immediately reduce its business links with Israel.

But unlike Tuesday, when around 35 demonstrators occupying a place between office buildings left after Microsoft asked them to leave, demonstrators on Wednesday “resisted and became aggressive” after the company told the police that they had intrusion, according to the Redmond Police Service.

The demonstrators also splashed the red paint resembling the blood color on a historic panel that carries the company logo and Epelle Microsoft in large gray letters.

“We said:” Please leave or you will be stopped “, and they have chosen not to leave so that they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.

Microsoft at the end of last week said that he was pressing a law firm to investigate the allegations reported by the British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli defense forces used the Azure Cloud computing platform in Microsoft to store the telephone call data obtained thanks to the mass monitoring of Palestinians in Gaza and the Cisjordan.

“Microsoft’s standard conditions of use prohibit this type of use,” said the company in a statement published on Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that deserve a complete and urgent exam”.

In February, the Associated Press revealed previously not declared details on the in -depth partnership of the Technology Giant with the Israeli Department of Defense, with the military use of commercial artificial intelligence products almost 200 times after the fatal of October 7, 2023, Hamas Attack. The AP reported that the Israeli army uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process the information collected by mass monitoring, which can then be cut with internal targeting systems and Israel.

Following the AP report, Microsoft recognized the military applications, but said that an examination he ordered found no evidence that his Azure platform and his artificial intelligence technologies had been used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share any copy of this exam or said who led him.

Microsoft said that he will share the conclusions of the last review once it was completed by the Covington law firm & Burling.

The promise of a second exam was insufficient for the NO Azure, led by employees for the apartheid group, which for months protested that Microsoft provided the Israeli army with a technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza. The group said on Wednesday that technology “was used to monitor, hungry and kill the Palestinians”.

Microsoft in May dismissed an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest against contracts and, in April, dismissed two others who interrupted the celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary.

The demonstrators posted on Tuesday, posted online a call to what they called an “workers’ intifada”, using the language evoking the Palestinian uprisings against the Israeli military occupation which began in 1987.

On Wednesday, the police service said it took 18 people in detention “for several accusations, including intrusion, malicious misdeeds, resistance to arrest and obstruction”. It was not clear how many Microsoft employees were. No injury has been reported.

Microsoft said in a statement after the arrests that it “will continue to do the hard work necessary to comply with its human rights standards in the Middle East, while supporting and taking clear measures to combat illegal actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others.”