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Several Google workers were arrested Tuesday after staging sits-ins at the company’s offices in New York City and California to protest the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government.
A total of nine protestors were arrested across both locations on Tuesday. Staffers on the Sunnyvale campus were livestreaming their protest to Twitch when another employee walked in around the eighth hour.
'We'd like to see if you could just voluntarily - it's been a while, so, can you do that for us?' the man asked, urging them to clear out the space and contact HR.
'Could you get in contact with TK about this?' one woman responded, referring to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, whose office they were sitting in.
When the workers refused to leave, a stream of police officers filed in and instructed them to put their hands behind their backs.
Hundreds of people watched online as the employees were taken into custody. Video posted to social media shows police leading them out of the Sunnyvale office in handcuffs.
'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,' a Google spokesperson told The Washington Post.
'These employees were put on administrative leave, and their access to our systems was cut. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.'
Demonstrators entered the offices in New York and California Tuesday afternoon, vowing to remain seated until Google pulled out of its $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
Under the 2021 agreement, known as Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon jointly provide AI and cloud computing services across branches of the Israeli government.
While the contract faced some pushback at the time of its inception, protests have only intensified amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict that has seen over 30,000 Palestinian civilians killed.
In December, employees staged a 'die-in' outside one of Google's offices in San Francisco, bringing traffic to a standstill as they chanted and waved flags at a busy intersection.
Just last month, the tech giant fired an engineer who protested during a keynote speech by the managing director of Google’s Israel business.
Google staffers are arrested after 'no tech for apartheid' protest
A total of nine protestors were arrested across both locations on Tuesday. Staffers on the Sunnyvale campus were livestreaming their protest to Twitch when another employee walked in around the eighth hour.
'We'd like to see if you could just voluntarily - it's been a while, so, can you do that for us?' the man asked, urging them to clear out the space and contact HR.
'Could you get in contact with TK about this?' one woman responded, referring to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, whose office they were sitting in.
When the workers refused to leave, a stream of police officers filed in and instructed them to put their hands behind their backs.
Hundreds of people watched online as the employees were taken into custody. Video posted to social media shows police leading them out of the Sunnyvale office in handcuffs.
'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,' a Google spokesperson told The Washington Post.
'These employees were put on administrative leave, and their access to our systems was cut. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.'
Demonstrators entered the offices in New York and California Tuesday afternoon, vowing to remain seated until Google pulled out of its $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
Under the 2021 agreement, known as Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon jointly provide AI and cloud computing services across branches of the Israeli government.
While the contract faced some pushback at the time of its inception, protests have only intensified amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict that has seen over 30,000 Palestinian civilians killed.
In December, employees staged a 'die-in' outside one of Google's offices in San Francisco, bringing traffic to a standstill as they chanted and waved flags at a busy intersection.
Just last month, the tech giant fired an engineer who protested during a keynote speech by the managing director of Google’s Israel business.
Google staffers are arrested after 'no tech for apartheid' protest
