Microsoft headquarters go into lockdown after activists take over Brad Smith’s office

Demonstrants stormed the Microsoft Redmond headquarters on Monday and reached the office of President Brad Smith in building 34, forcing a temporary lockdown. The “No Azure for Apartheid” group Livestream their sit -in on Twitch, hoisting tensioners hoist, “Brad Smith sing, you can’t hide, you support genocide!” And placing a fake legal summons that Smith accuses of ‘crimes against humanity’.

Microsoft did not respond to TechCrunch’s request before the day for comment, but a few hours after the occupation, Smith held a hasty press conference next to his desk to tackle the extraordinary events. Of the seven people involved, he said, there were only two current Microsoft -employees and one was a former Google employee, Smith said.

He also told reporters who gathered on stage – Including Van Geekwire – That after the demonstrators refused to leave when he was asked, the Redmond police had to physically remove them from the building. The police arrested all seven charges, including entering the entering and obstruction.

Smith said that the actions of the demonstrators ‘were not necessary to pay attention to’ and that such an activity ‘distracts from the real dialogue’ that Microsoft has with employee groups with different backgrounds, religions and cultures within Microsoft.

According to a report earlier in the day The edgeThe protest included both active Microsoft employees and former employees who were fired for previous activism. Monday’s escalation follows on months of protests about Microsoft’s cloud contracts with Israel, including recent arrests at the company’s head office.

A recent Guardian investigation Out of Israel, the services of Microsoft uses to store data from millions of calls every day that is done by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Monday’s business takeover reflected tactics from Google employees more than a year ago. In April 2024, nine Google employees organized coordinated protests in offices in New York and California, with five occupying Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s Office for nine hours. They wrote demands on his whiteboard and wore “Googler against Genocide” shirts.

The Google demonstrators focused on Project Nimbus, a $ 1.2 billion contract with Amazon that offers the Israeli government and the army of Cloud Computing and AI tools. The sit-ins and arrests of the employees became live stream on Twitch in the same way; Three days later, 28 employees were involved in those protests dismissed.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to display Smith’s comments, which were made for hours after the protesters were removed in his office But after this piece was first published.