Egypt frees Google manager who became protest hero
Source: msnbc.msn.com
Egypt on Monday released Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who became a hero of anti-government protesters after he vanished nearly two weeks ago while taking part in demonstrations calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Egyptian Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing manager, talks at his home in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Feb. 7. He was held in Egypt for nearly two weeks over anti-government protests, and was freed Monday. (AP Photo/Ahmed Ali)
Protesters in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square say Ghonim, a marketing manager for the search giant, was one of the main organizers of the Facebook online campaign that sparked the mass protests on Jan. 25. He went missing on Jan. 27 and his whereabouts were not known until Sunday, when a prominent Egyptian political figure confirmed he was under arrest and would soon be released.
Ghonim, a 30-year-old man with an American wife and two children, gave interviews following his release, according to the international blog Global Voices. In a discussion with Egypt’s DreamTV, Ghonim shared details of his ordeal.
"I was taking a taxi, suddenly four people surrounded the car, I yelled ’Help me, Help me’ I was blindfolded then taken away," Ghonim said, according to Twitter posts by journalist Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, who translated the interview.
"The treatment was very good, they knew I was a good Egyptian. I was blindfolded for 12 days, I didn’t see their faces," Ghonim said.
Despite this "good" treatment, Ghonim did witness violence. "I saw a film director get slapped, they told him ’You will die here’ Why?" said the translation.
Now that Ghonim is free, he is catching up on what has happened since his imprisonment.
"We have to restore dignity to all Egyptians. We have to end corruption. No more theft. Egyptians are good people."
"This is not the time to split the pie & enforce ideologies. The secret to the success of the Facebook page was use of surveys," he added.
Ghonim was later shown on ON TV on his way to a close relative’s home conversing energetically in a car with Hossam Badrawi, the new secretary general of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party.
Ghonim told ON TV: "Please don’t make me a hero. I’m not a hero. I have been asleep for 12 days. I hope that we would be able to put an end to all the rubbish in this country. The rubbish really needs to be cleaned up."
Ghonim added that the initial intention behind the organized protests in Egypt was that they be peaceful.
Orascom Telecom Chairman Naguib Sawiris said on Sunday that the authorities had promised him Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, would be freed.
Google said last week that Ghonim had not been seen since Jan. 27 and began a public search for him, giving out a telephone number for information about him.
Activists said Ghonim had been involved in founding "We are all Khaled Said", an anti-torture Facebook group named after an activist who rights groups said was beaten to death by police in the port city of Alexandria. Two officers now face trial.
In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Ghonim said that he was "El Shaheeed," one of the anonymous creators of the Facbook group. The name (spelled that way by Ghonim on his site), means "the martyr" in Arabic. He started the Facebook page after seeing what had happened to Said.
"That killed me. I felt in pain. And I wanted to do something," he told The Daily Beast. "It happened that I created this page, and it happened that 375,000 people [are] on it. So I’m using it to reveal the truth that the government is trying to hide."
"Ghonim’s Facebook page started as a small campaign against police brutality but quickly mushroomed into an all-out effort against human-rights abuses in Egypt," the story said, adding that the crowd-sourcing nature of Facebook helped Ghonim’s group monitor fraud in Egypt’s November parliamentary elections.
Despite the attention drawn to Ghonim, he does not seem to want to take a leadership role in the protests. "This isn’t about me," he told The Daily Beast. "It’s about Egypt."
The Wall Street Journal says that eight others from Ghonim’s "tech-savvy group" who support opposition leader Mohamed El Baradei were also arrested. Seven were collected at the same time, while eating dinner in a restaurant. They have been released from custody. The eighth detainee, a lawyer, had not been located at the time of the WSJ report.
Protests on a scale unprecedented during President Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade rule have raged across the most populous Arab country since Jan. 25.
Wire services Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Article from: msnbc.msn.com
Wael Ghonim is Free: First Words (CC button for english subtitles)
Video from: YouTube.com
