Why Microsoft fired two employees after they staged a protest in Brad Smith’s office

Microsoft

Microsoft has fired two of its engineers after they staged a bold protest inside the office of Brad Smith, the company’s vice chair and president. The employees, Riki Fameli and Anna Hattle, were part of a small group that slipped into Smith’s office at Microsoft’s Redmond campus earlier this week, according to a Verge report.

The protest wasn’t quiet. They live-streamed the whole thing on Twitch, sitting inside the office and calling on Microsoft to cut ties with the Israeli government. The drama quickly forced Microsoft to lock down its executive building for security reasons.

Police were called in and ended up arresting Hattle and Fameli, along with three former Microsoft workers, a former Google employee, and another activist from the tech world.

In a statement to GeekWire, Microsoft confirmed the two terminations, saying both had committed “serious breaches of company policies and our code of conduct.”

Brad Smith himself addressed the incident just hours later, holding a press conference that he also streamed live on YouTube. He made it clear that Microsoft stands by its policies in the Middle East and said the company had already launched an internal review into claims that its Azure cloud services were being used for surveillance of Palestinians.

This wasn’t the first time Anna Hattle had made headlines. Only last week, she was arrested during another protest at Microsoft’s headquarters, where demonstrators poured red paint on a company sign and set up an encampment they called a “Liberated Zone.”

The group behind the demonstrations, No Azure for Apartheid, is made up of current and former Microsoft employees who have been staging protests for months. What started as rallies on campus has now escalated to targeting the homes and offices of top executives.

For Microsoft, the firings signal one of the strongest moves yet against internal dissent over its government contracts. And for the tech industry at large, the incident shows just how heated the debate around corporate partnerships and human rights has become.