Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unsanctioned vigil at the company’s Redmond, Washington headquarters to honor Palestinians killed in Gaza during the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The employees, Abdelrahman Mohamed and Hossam Nasr, told The Associated Press that they were informed of their termination via phone call late Thursday, hours after the lunchtime event they had organized.
Both Mohamed and Nasr were part of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid,” which has been critical of Microsoft’s decision to sell its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government. However, they argued that Thursday’s vigil was similar to other Microsoft-approved employee gift campaigns for people in need.
“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist. “But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves.”
In a statement, Microsoft confirmed that it had “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” but declined to provide further details, citing privacy and confidentiality considerations.
Mohamed, who is originally from Egypt, now faces the challenge of finding a new job within the next two months to transfer his work visa and avoid deportation.
Nasr, who co-organized the vigil, said its purpose was not only to honor the victims of what he called “the Palestinian genocide in Gaza” but also to draw attention to Microsoft’s alleged complicity due to the use of its technology by the Israeli military.
Nasr, an Egyptian-raised 2021 graduate of Harvard University and co-organizer of Harvard Alumni for Palestine, claimed that his firing was disclosed on social media by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call from Microsoft. The group had previously called on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to take action against Nasr for his public stances on Israel.
The firings at Microsoft come in the wake of similar actions at Google, where more than 50 workers were terminated following protests over the company’s “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
AP
