It is a rare word that could well impress. In an open letter transmitted on the site of the video game workers, the French study Arkane (based in Lyon) wishes to be heard in front of its administration and owner, Microsoft. Arkane joined Xbox after Bethesda’s acquisition in 2020 and is currently working on a Marvel Comics adaptation Black.
For employees, Microsoft must stop their collaborations with Israel, while the Jewish state of Gaza’s strip without discontinuating for months, and that a famine is underway due to the lack of authorized foods to enter the Israeli army.
“Microsoft must take the necessary measures”
Reacting to the Boicot campaign of Xbox products and games initiated by the BDS movement (for boycott, divestment and sanction), which seeks to move companies collaborating with Israel, the letter states that Microsoft takes “the necessary measures.”
If Microsoft has denied facilitating the bombings in Gaza, the company is actively working with Israeli’s government and army, as revealed by the Associated Press agency. Worse, this collaboration would have been “reinforced” in recent years, particularly thanks to Azure Technologies, its server service. The company had explained that they could not guarantee the use of their products, but did not choose to stop their current contracts.
Internally, the movement grows
The pro-Palestinian movement and against Zionist ideology in Microsoft has grown in recent months. Several employees, some of whom were fired, had interrupted conferences to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the US company. More than 2,000 Microsoft employees had also signed a petition for their company to cease to provide blue services compared to what they describe as “Apartheid”.
Despite the popularity of this request, “Microsoft is deaf,” explains Arkane Studios: “To date, Microsoft denigrates its moral commitment, to the public and its employees, being actively complicit in the invasion of Palestine and the war crimes that take place there. If these” values “are more than simple sales arguments to grow more than they are buying, Microsoft really applies to they”.
Several things are claimed in this open letter. The termination of all contracts, present or future, with the “Israeli occupation forces”, the publication of Microsoft’s links with Israel with an independent audit, an immediate and permanent call “to the Gaza Strip and the guarantee of the freedom of expression of pro-palestinian employees, particularly on the internal platforms of the company.
Source: BFM TV
