Google employees arrested after staging protest against firm for working with Israel

Several Google employees are arrested for protesting against the company for working with Israel amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, reported The Washington Post. As per the report, a total of 9 employees in Google’s New York and Sunnyvale, California office were arrested after sit-in protests.

Google employees arrested

The Washington Post has also mentioned that a protester shared a video of the arrest which shows New York Police Department (NYPD) officers telling the protesters that if they don’t leave, they will be arrested. NYPD later arrested those employees who refused to leave.

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The Washington Post quoted a Google Spokesperson and 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 further added that the 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 employees were protesting the $1.2 billion contract Google has with Israel to provide cloud services and data centres. As per the Washington Post, 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.

The Nimbus Contract is offered to both Google and Amazon. Amazon employees have also reportedly protested against Nimbus