{"id":112906,"date":"2025-08-27T04:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T04:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/112906\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T04:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T04:16:09","slug":"microsoft-hosts-emergency-press-conference-after-protesters-storm-a-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/112906\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft hosts emergency press conference after protesters \u2018storm a building\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft president Brad Smith hosted an impromptu press conference on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after protesters gained access to a building at the company\u2019s headquarters and held a sit-in demonstration inside his office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seated on the edge of his desk, in the office that had been occupied by protesters earlier that day, Smith addressed a group of reporters and viewers on a live stream. \u201cObviously, this was an unusual day,\u201d he said, the camera shaking as he spoke.<\/p>\n

The protesters were part of the No Azure for Apartheid group, which on several<\/a> occasions<\/a> this year interrupted Microsoft\u2019s public presentations to demand that the company terminate all contracts with the Israeli government and military.<\/p>\n

Smith said that Microsoft is \u201ccommitted to ensuring its human rights principles and contractual terms of service are upheld in the Middle East.\u201d He said the company launched an investigation earlier this month after the Guardian<\/a> reported that Microsoft\u2019s Azure cloud platform was being used for surveillance of Palestinians. Smith said that Microsoft disagreed with some of the report\u2019s findings, but that others warranted investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working every day to get to the bottom of what\u2019s going on, and we will,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

An organizer for No Azure for Apartheid, Abdo Mohamed, earlier today told The Verge<\/a> that Microsoft employees Riki Fameli and Anna Hattle were part of the protest. They were joined by former Microsoft employees Vaniya Agrawal<\/a>, Hossam Nasr, and Joe Lopez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smith said that seven people in total were involved with today\u2019s protests, with two of them being Microsoft employees. The people were removed by Redmond police, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen seven folks do as they did today, storm a building, occupy an office, lock other people out of the office, plant listening devices \u2014 even in crude form, in the form of telephones, cellphones hidden under couches and behind books \u2014 that\u2019s not ok,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWhen they\u2019re asked to leave and they refused, that\u2019s not ok.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft president Brad Smith hosted an impromptu press conference on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after protesters gained access…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,1281,3,1343,111,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-112906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-microsoft","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-policy","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}