Google employees arrested after protests against company working with Israel

A report by The Washington Post reveals that several Google employees were arrested after staging protests against the company. According to the report, employees in Google’s New York and Sunnyvale, California office were arrested after sit-in protests. The employees were protesting against Google’s contracts with Israel in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

According to the report, a total of nine employees were arrested across the two Google offices. The report also mentions that a protester shared a video of the arrest. In the video New York Police Department officers tell the protesters that if they don’t leave, they will be arrested. The protesting workers refused to leave and were then arrested by NYPD.

A Google spokesperson said that the arrested employees had been put on administrative leave and their access to the company’s systems was also cut. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action,” Bailey Tomson, a Google spokesperson told The Washington Post. He also said that law enforcement agencies were engaged to remove them to ensure after safety as even after multiple requests, the protestors refused to leave the company premises.
The protestors were against a $1.2 billion contract Google has with Israel to provide cloud services and data centres. According to the report, the protestors said that they would only leave when Google pulls out of the deal. The contract — known as Nimbus — was signed by Google in 2021, as per the report.

Interestingly, the Israeli government awarded the contract to both Google and Amazon. According to the report, Amazon employees have also protested against Nimbus.