- By Aditya Jha
- Sat, 26 Oct 2024 02:32 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Tech giant Microsoft has fired two employees for organising an unauthorised vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel's war with Hamas. The two employees claimed that they were fired by a phone call on Thursday, hours after organising the vigil at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, The Associated Press reported.
Microsoft on Friday said it has “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” but did not provide details. The company's statement read that it remains “dedicated to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment. Due to privacy and confidentiality considerations, we cannot provide specific details.”
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One of the fired workers, Hossam Nasr, said that he came to know about the firing on a social media post by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call. He further explained that the purpose of the vigil was both “to honor the victims of the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and to call attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide,” as the firm's technology was used by the Israeli military. Mohamed, another fired employee who belongs to Egypt, said that he will need a new job in the next two months to transfer a work visa that would avoid deportation.
Both of the employees were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid." Earlier, this group opposed Microsoft's sale of its cloud computing technology to the Israeli government. “We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends, or loved ones,” Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. “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,” he added.