[News] 'Googler Against Genocide': Tech giant orders arrest of workers protesting contract with Israel

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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'Googler Against Genocide': Tech giant orders arrest of workers protesting
contract with Israel
By MEE staff
April 17, 2024
------------------------------

Internal anger over Google's $1.2bn Project Nimbus contract with Israel has
grown amid Israel's war on Gaza

Activists and Google workers held protests at Google in New York City and
Sunnyvale, California, on 16 April 2024 (X/No Tech for Apartheid)

Published date: 17 April 2024 20:02 BST | Last update: 5 hours 4 mins ago

Several Google employees were arrested Tuesday evening at the company’s
offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, after the company
called police to break up a protest against Google’s work with the Israeli
government.

Police were seen entering a conference room at Google’s office in Sunnyvale
and removing protesters wearing Palestinian keffiyehs and T-shirts reading,
“Googler Against Genocide”.

The protestors said their sit-in at company offices would continue until
they were removed or their employer dropped its $1.2bn "Project Nimbus"
contract with Israel’s government.

The project, announced in 2021 by Google and Amazon, provides advanced
artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to Israel’s
government. Since then it has sparked backlash among some Google workers
who have condemned Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. That criticism has
resurfaced amid Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 33,000
Palestinians, mainly women and children.

Google called in the police after the 10-hour-long sit snarled work at the
company’s workplaces, including the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas
Kurian in Sunnyvale. The sit-in was organised by the group, No Tech for
Apartheid.

Nine employees were arrested across New York and California, according to
Jane Chung, the protestors' spokesperson.

“Google execs basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out against
the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide,” Google
software engineer Mohammad Khatami, one of the protestors arrested in New
York, told Democracy Now.

An online petition circulated by No Tech for Apartheid demanding that
Google and Amazon cancel the Nimbus project had garnered 94,494 shares by
Wednesday evening, nearing the 95,000 threshold the group had set.

“Your technology is directly supporting the ongoing ethnic cleansing of
Gaza and the recent genocidal bombing of Gaza that began last month,” the
letter said.

“As long as your tech continues to power the Israeli military and
government, you are actively complicit in this genocide.”

The protest movement comes after critics accused Google of muzzling
pro-Palestinian voices.

In March, Google fired
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/Activists%20and%20Google%20workers%20hold%20a%20protest%20outside%20Google's%20San%20Francisco%20office%20against%20the%20company's%20partnerships%20with%20Israel,%20on%2014%20December%202023%20(X/No%20Tech%20for%20Apartheid)>
an employee who shouted, “I refuse to build technology that empowers
Genocide” during a presentation in New York City by Barak Regev, Google’s
Israel managing director.

In December, Google staff members and No Tech for Apartheid held a vigil in
London for software engineer, Mai Ubeid, who was a graduate of the
Google-funded coding boot camp, Gaza Sky Geeks, and in 2020 was part of the
Google for Startups accelerator programme.

Ubeid was killed on 31 October along with her entire family in an air
strike during Israel's war on Gaza.
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