{"id":3114,"date":"2025-04-08T09:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T09:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3114"},"modified":"2025-04-08T09:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T09:01:07","slug":"microsoft-fires-employees-for-protesting-in-support-of-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3114","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft fires employees for protesting in support of Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Microsoft has fired two software engineers who publicly protested the company\u2019s contracts with the Israeli military during its 50th anniversary celebrations, citing \u201cwilful misconduct\u201d and disruption of business activities.<\/p>\n<p>The firings come amid growing scrutiny of Big Tech\u2019s role in armed conflicts, particularly over the use of artificial intelligence in warfare.<\/p>\n<p>Ibtihal Aboussad, based in Canada and part of Microsoft\u2019s AI division, interrupted a keynote by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman in Redmond, Washington, on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>View this post on Instagram<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A post shared by Muslim (@muslim)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMustafa, shame on you,\u201d she said during the livestreamed event. \u201cMicrosoft powers this genocide in our region.\u201d She also called Suleyman a \u201cwar profiteer\u201d and threw a keffiyeh scarf onstage before being escorted out.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after, she emailed top Microsoft executives, including Satya Nadella and Brad Smith, saying she could no longer remain silent after learning of her team\u2019s involvement in \u201cpowering the genocide of my people in Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft later informed Ibtihal Aboussad that her employment had been terminated immediately. According to internal communications seen by CNBC, the company said she had deliberately disrupted a major event to gain notoriety.<\/p>\n<p>Vaniya Agrawal, a US-based engineer, staged a similar protest at a separate session featuring Satya Nadella. Although she had submitted her resignation for April 11, Microsoft made her departure effective immediately.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>View this post on Instagram<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A post shared by \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 \u0639\u064a\u0646 \u0639\u0644\u0649 \u0641\u0644\u0633\u0637\u064a\u0646 | Eye on Palestine (@eye.on.palestine)<\/p>\n<p>Vaniya Agrawal also emailed Microsoft leadership, calling the firm a \u201cdigital weapons manufacturer\u201d complicit in \u201csurveillance, apartheid, and genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The protests came just days after a report revealed Microsoft and OpenAI technologies were used in Israeli military targeting operations in Gaza and Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft has not confirmed the specific allegations but stated, \u201cWe provide many avenues for all voices to be heard. However, this must be done without disrupting business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In February, five other Microsoft employees were ejected from a staff meeting with Satya Nadella after protesting similar contracts.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft is the latest tech company facing backlash over its ties to Israel. In 2024, dozens of Google workers were fired following sit-ins against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion AI deal with the Israeli government.<\/p>\n<p>Rights groups and labour advocates have called the firings at Microsoft retaliation against whistleblowers.<\/p>\n<p>No Azure for Apartheid, the advocacy group supporting the dismissed workers, said the employees were standing up for human rights and should be reinstated.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft has fired two software engineers who publicly protested the company\u2019s contracts with the Israeli military during its 50th anniversary celebrations, citing \u201cwilful misconduct\u201d and disruption of business activities. The firings come amid growing scrutiny of Big Tech\u2019s role in armed conflicts, particularly over the use of artificial intelligence in warfare. Ibtihal Aboussad, based in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}