New Delhi, April 18 (IANS): Tech giant Google has laid off 28 employees who were involved in sit-in protests at its offices over a Google contract with the Israeli government.

The layoffs happened after nine employees were suspended and then arrested in the US earlier this week, reports The Verge.

The 28 employees who have been asked to go protested a $1.2 billion Google Cloud contract for the Israeli government.

In an internal memo to employees, the company said that behaviour like this “has no place in our workplace, and we will not tolerate it.”

“The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” Google told the staff.

“The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behaviour -- up to and including termination.”

The group behind the protests called Google’s move a “flagrant act of retaliation.”

“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about the terms and conditions of our labour. These firings were clearly retaliatory,” said the group called “No Tech for Apartheid.”

The company said that following an investigation, “we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”