Anti-Israel Google employees arrested after occupying CEO's office with demands against ‘apartheid state’
Protests organised by No Tech for Apartheid raised concerns over Google's business ties with Israel and rose up against Project Nimbus.
Google employees with anti-Israel demands of ceasing “business with the Israeli apartheid government and military” were arrested on Tuesday after they took over Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's California office. Occupying the space for over 8 hours, the employees broadcast their Pro-Palestine protest on a Twitch livestream, which ultimately also captured their arrest.
The ‘notech4apartheid’ video shows a man informing the employees that they've been put on administrative leave before he asks them to leave voluntarily. To which, the protesters refused, leading to their arrest by the police.
Google employees arrested
The peaceful protestors approached by the man were intimated that it was getting late and they should cooperate accordingly. “You've been placed on admin leave and we'd like to see if you'd just voluntarily [leave] it's been a while,” he said.
As the employees refused to comply, he threatened to bring in law enforcement. The protestors acknowledged his remarks, and moments later, the police came in and took them in. At this point, the livestream also abruptly ends.
If viewed carefully, the clip puts the focus on a banner, that reads “ DROP NIMBUS,” attached to the room's entrance. Per a Daily Wire report, these protests were organised internally via email exchanges between the employees, highlighting a set of demands. The paramount call was for Google to sever its ties with Israel by dropping the $1.2 billion contract for Project Numbus – a cloud computing project of the Israeli government.
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Demands of the Anti-Israel protestors
The employees have driven a case for Google to divest from its business ties with the “Israeli apartheid government and military” and put an end to “harassment, intimidation, bullying and silencing” of Palestinian and Muslim workers. They've also pushed the organisation to focus on the “health and safety crisis” that caused concern among all those employees who can't bear with their office hours and hard work being used to “enable a genocide.”
On April 16, Google employees led a national day demanding the company to “stop powering Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza." The No Tech for Apartheid movement has the workers staying in office as part of their protests until Google parts ways with Project Nimbus.
In a letter to the Google Cloud CEO, the workers wrote: “By choosing to provide the Israeli government and military with our powerful cloud computing and AI technologies, we have continuously enabled Israel’s apartheid state in Palestine and ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
They also highlighted that they'll sit in Kurian's office until the demands are met. No Tech for Apartheid website reported that workers showed up in solidarity at Google offices in New York City, Sunnyvale, CA and Seattle.
