Aug. 28 (UPI) — A pair of Microsoft employees were terminated for allegedly breaking into President Brad Smith‘s office.
An online group called No Azure for Apartheid announced Thursday on X that Microsoft employees Riki Fameli and Anna Hattle had been fired for “participating in a sit-in at the office of Brad Smith” at the Microsoft location in Redmond, Wash., to demand the company cut its ties to Israel.
Redmond Police announced on Tuesday that seven people were arrested that day for allegedly breaking into “an executive office” at Microsoft and refusing to leave.
All seven were taken into custody on charges of trespassing, resisting arrest and obstruction. The case remains under police investigation.
Smith held an online press conference Tuesday and confirmed that two Microsoft employees and a former Google employee were arrested in the incident.
“We need to keep our workplace safe and secure,” Smith said. “We need to keep our employees secure.”
“But obviously, as seven folks do as they did today, storm a building, occupy an office, lock other people out of the office, plant listening devices in crude form using phones, cell phones hidden under couches, behind books, that’s not OK,” Smith continued.
“When they’re asked to leave and they refuse, that’s not OK. That’s why, for those seven folks, the Redmond police literally had to take them out of the building,” Smith then said.
No Azure for Apartheid further announced that a “full campaign and press conference details” are “coming soon.”
The firings at Microsoft come after Google fired 28 employees last year in response to a series of protests that were partly focused on the company’s contract with the Israeli government, during which the office of CEO of Google’s cloud unit Thomas Kurian was breached.