Seattle

Microsoft workers breached and occupied the office of Microsoft President Brad Smith on Aug. 26, as part of their struggle to stop genocide in Gaza.

The occupation follows a year of organizing by No Azure for Apartheid, a Microsoft workers’ organization which has organized what they are calling a “workers intifada” against the U.S. military-industrial complex. The group has exposed Microsoft as a guiding hand and a technological backbone behind the U.S./Israeli brutal war on Gaza.

The Azure-militarized Microsoft technology has been exposed recently in +972 Magazine and The Guardian, which had in-depth investigations into its use. The technology can identify millions of private calls by Palestinians, which are then used by the Israeli military in the surveillance, targeting and killing of Palestinians. This technology has been in use for several years.

When workers occupied Smith’s office, they hung up two banners. One renamed the executive building the “Mai Ubeid Building” to honor the late Mai Ubeid, a Palestinian software engineer murdered in Gaza by an Israeli air strike. Another banner raised four worker demands: “No Azure, cut ties with Israel! End the genocide in Gaza! Reparations to Palestine! End worker discrimination!” The last one refers to discrimination and harassment against Palestinian, Arab and Islamic workers.

The No Azure activists unrolled an 18-foot long scroll with the names of 2,000 Microsoft workers who said, “No Azure for Apartheid.” Activists issued a summons to Microsoft President Brad Smith to appear to answer for his crimes of genocide.  It read “Failure to appear will increase escalation against all Microsoft executives” — signed Microsoft workers.

During this time, Microsoft fired four No Azure tech workers, including Hossam Nasr, a spokesperson for the organization. Several people involved in the action at Smith’s office were arrested. Microsoft management said it will have an investigation into its use of Azure by the Israeli military. Nasr replied: “It’s way too urgent to wait for investigations. There is no time left to investigate.”

During the week, people in kayaks formed a flotilla and held up a banner outside the lakefront homes of Microsoft President Smith and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, reading “Microsoft kills kids.”

No Azure for Apartheid says: “We call on workers and people of conscience around the world to join this Worker Intifada. Answer Gaza’s call and escalate your efforts against all complicit executives and corporations.”

(IG: @noazureforapartheid)