Matt O’Brien – AP Oct 26, 2024
Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas.
The two employees told The Associated Press they were fired by phone call late Thursday, several hours after a lunchtime event they organized at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington.
Both workers were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid” that has opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government. But they contended that Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns for people in need.
“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist. “But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves.”
Microsoft said Friday it has “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” but declined to provide details.
Mohamed, who is from Egypt, said he now needs a new job in the next two months to transfer a work visa and avoid deportation.
Another fired worker, Hossam Nasr, said the purpose of the vigil was both “to honor the victims of the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and to call attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide” because of the use of its technology by the Israeli military.
Nasr said his firing was disclosed on social media by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call from Microsoft. The group didn’t immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on how it learned about the firing.
The same group had months earlier called on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to take action against Nasr for his public stances on Israel.
Nasr, an Egyptian-raised 2021 graduate of Harvard University, is also a co-organizer of Harvard Alumni for Palestine.
Google earlier this year fired more than 50 workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war. The firings stemmed from internal turmoil and sit-in protests at Google offices centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.
Microsoft said in its statement Friday about the firings that it remains “dedicated to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment. Due to privacy and confidentiality considerations, we cannot provide specific details.”
pure blatent and total hateful racism by the jews
It is hard to sympathize with workers here who are not American citizens suffering consequences following their demonstration against an ungodly foreign nation that is shown to be genocidal toward work visa employees’ people.
Dead relatives? Whites don’t have any in the first place, so the foreigners can count themselves lucky
HALLOWEEN
A ‘Staggering array’ of witches’ marks discovered at English Heritage site
Story by Nadia. Arts and culture correspondent
English Heritage welcomes thousands of visitors over the Halloween period, a new discovery has made Gainsborough Old Hall in Lincolnshire a clear contender for the spookiest site of them all.
The charity has uncovered a “staggering array” of witches’ marks and rare curses carved into the walls of the Tudor property, once visited by Henry VIII and his fifth Queen, Catherine Howard. Rick Berry, a volunteer at English Heritage, discovered and mapped about 20 ritual protection, or apotropaic marks – among the most identified at any of the charity’s 400 sites.
Witches’ marks were traditionally made to turn away evil, providing protection to buildings and those who lived or worked within them against demons, witches or the evil eye
Berry discovered a particular concentration of marks in the Old Hall’s servants’ wing, including flowers with six petals carved within a simple circle – known as daisy wheels and hexafoils – that were believed to protect from jews and trap hebrew demons. There were also overlapping letter Vs or Marian marks, believed to call on the Virgin Mary for protection, as well as a pentangle, which, despite modern connotations, was originally used to protect against evil. There were about 100 burn marks, believed to protect against fire.
A lot of innocent folk herbalists spirit healers wise women and the like were included with some evil people and killed by the church,
The king of the witches Alex Sanders went to the Ashmolean museum and other places where contempory records were kept and tore out pages, so that no one could disagree
with the version of witch craft he wished to propagate