SAN FRANCISCO: Several protesters from Jewish community groups were arrested at an Amazon bookstore in Manhattan after they occupied the shop and protested Amazon Web Service’s (AWS) Cloud computing contracts and other technical support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the media has reported.
Dubbed as #JewsAgainstICE, the protest was organized by Jewish groups seeking to mark “Tisha B’Av”, a day of mourning and fasting to commemorate atrocities carried out against Jewish people throughout history, by calling attention to the plight of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, according to a Newsweek report August 12.
According to a Jewish rights group named Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), the New York Police Department took over 40 protesters into custody, taking a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus out of service to transport demonstrators to a booking station.
Amazon’s ties to law enforcement have proved controversial even internally, where employees last year sent a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos asking him to stop selling the company’s Rekognition facial recognition to law enforcement and boot Palantir from AWS. IANS
