18 members of the pro-Palestinian group No Azure for Apartheid were arrested while protesting Microsoft’s business ties with Israel.
The arrests took place on August 20, 2025, during the second day of No Azure for Apartheid protests at Microsoft’s HQ in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft workers, former workers, and pro-Palestinian community members re-established a “Liberation Zone” in Microsoft’s East Campus Plaza (referred to by the group as the Martyred Palestinian Children’s Plaza) after being dispersed by police on August 19, 2025.
According to an Instagram post by No Azure for Apartheid, published August 21, 2025, protestors had “set up tents, displayed art to honor Palestinian martyrs, and gave speeches about Microsoft’s complicity in the surveillance and genocide of Palestinians.”
The protest escalated around 12:15pm, however, with No Azure for Apartheid claiming Microsoft and Redmond Police retaliated against its “peaceful opposition of war crimes” with “the brutal mass arrest of 18 protestors, chemical weapons, and physical violence.”
“Current workers, former workers, and community members were hog-tied, violently dragged around, and pepper-sprayed in a repressive escalation,” the group claimed on Instagram.
“Microsoft and Redmond Police chose to dehumanize, brutalize, and criminalize people of conscience for opposing Microsoft’s actual war crimes.”
The statement continued: “Despite today’s brutal repression, let us be clear: no violence will successfully shut down escalation efforts against Microsoft’s complicity in war crimes.The Worker Intifada is an answer to Gaza’s call for action, and so The Worker Intifada will live on.”
In an X post on August 21, 2025, Redmond police confirmed the 18 arrests and claimed that after initially attempting to “trespass the protestors,” they “resisted and became aggressive.”
The police department went on to claim that “a few protestors had poured paint over the Microsoft sign and on the ground,” while “others had blocked a pedestrian bridge and were using stolen tables and chairs from vendors to form a barrier.”
The 18 arrests were allegedly for “multiple charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction,” but Redmond police claim “no injuries were reported.”
“As we have made clear, Microsoft is committed to its human rights standards and contractual terms of service, including in the Middle East,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to Komo News.
“The company announced last week that it is pursuing a thorough and independent review of new allegations first reported earlier this month about the purported use of its Azure platform in Israel.”
No Azure for Apartheid is a “movement of Microsoft workers demanding that Microsoft end its direct and indirect complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide.”
The group specifically demands Microsoft “cut ties with Israel,” calls for an “end to the genocide and forced starvation” in Palestine, pays “reparations to the Palestinians”, and ends “the discrimination against workers.”
Over 2,000 Microsoft workers have signed the No Azure for Apartheid petition, which demands the tech giant “cut all [its] ties with the Israeli Army,” and that the company conducts “a third-party independent audit of our contract, services and product to make sure they are not involved in any human right violation, be it in Gaza, or elsewhere.”
Earlier this month, Arkane Studios STJV union members voiced their support for the group and the petition in an open letter to Microsoft and the heads of its subsidiaries.
In May, Microsoft conducted an internal review following claims that its Azure and AI technologies were being used by the Israel Ministry of Defence (IMOD) “to target civilians or cause harm in the conflict in Gaza.”
At the time, Microsoft acknowledged it provides the IMOD with “software, professional services, Azure cloud and AI services,” but claimed its review found “no evidence to date” that these technologies “have been used to target or harm people” in the ongoing Gaza conflict.
In a recent statement, No Azure for Apartheid refuted Microsoft’s claims and explained that it is protesting at Microsoft HQ to “escalate against Microsoft’s active role in powering 22 months of genocide in Palestine.”
“For 22 months, Microsoft enabled, accelerated, and profited off the genocide while repeatedly silencing and retaliating against its workers who spoke up against its immoral and illegal genocide-profiteering business practices,” the statement reads.
“The amount of evidence has become insurmountable; the disruptions have become non-stop; and the worker pressure has reached a tipping point. Still, Microsoft and its executives refuse to listen to its workers’ demands and continue to hide behind desperate PR statements and sham investigations.”
It added: “It has become clear to us: Microsoft’s claims of being a moral company are a facade. They will not change their ways because it is the right thing to do; they will continue to exploit our labor to directly enable apartheid, power genocide through tech weapons in the form of Cloud and AI, and abet the starvation campaign in Gaza; in other words, they will only divest from the economy of occupation and genocide when not doing so hurts their bottom line.
“That’s why, today, we join the long tradition of workers who have taken material direct action in their workplaces to force an end to the ongoing cycle of genocide-profiteering in solidarity with Palestine.”
