Freed Google executive helped spark Egypt revolt

The young Google Inc.
executive detained by Egyptian authorities for 12 days said Monday he
was behind the Facebook page that helped spark what he called "the revolution of the youth of the Internet." A U.S.-based human rights group said nearly 300 people have died in two weeks of clashes. Freed Google executive helped spark Egypt revolt 9260780-large

Freed Google executive helped spark Egypt revolt 9260780-large

Google Inc. via APWael Ghonim, a Google Inc. marketing manager held for 12 days in anti-government protests, was freed Monday.
Wael
Ghonim, a marketing manager for the Internet company, sobbed throughout
an emotional television interview just hours after he was freed as he
described how he spent 12 days in detention blindfolded while his
worried parents didn't know where he was. He insisted he had not been
tortured and said his interrogators treated him with respect."This
is the revolution of the youth of the Internet and now the revolution
of all Egyptians," he said, adding that he was taken aback when the
security forces holding him branded him a traitor."Anyone with
good intentions is the traitor because being evil is the norm," he said.
"If I was a traitor, I would have stayed in my villa in the Emirates
and made good money and said like others, 'Let this country go to hell.'
But we are not traitors," added Ghonim, an Egyptian who oversees
Google's marketing in the Middle East and Africa from Dubai, one of the
United Arab Emirates.The protesters have already brought the most
sweeping changes since President Hosni Mubarak took power 30 years ago,
but they are keeping up the pressure in hopes of achieving their
ultimate goal of ousting Mubarak.Ghonim has become a hero of the
demonstrators since he went missing on Jan. 27, two days after the
protests began. He confirmed reports by protesters that he was the
administrator of the Facebook page "We are all Khaled Said" that was one of the main tools for organizing the demonstration that started the movement on Jan. 25. Freed Google executive helped spark Egypt revolt 9260793-large

Freed Google executive helped spark Egypt revolt 9260793-large

View full sizeEmilio Morenatti, Associated PressAn
Egyptian anti-Mubarak protester holds a banner reading in Arabic, 'If
you love Egypt you don't still,'" at Tahrir square in Cairo. Egypt's
vice president met a broad representation of major opposition groups for
the first time Sunday and agreed to allow freedom of the press and to
release those detained since anti-government protests began, though
Al-Jazeera's English-language news network said one of its
correspondents had been detained the same day by the Egyptian military.
Khaled
Said was a 28-year-old businessman who died in June at the hands of
undercover police, setting off months of protests against the hated
police. The police have also been blamed for enflaming violence by
trying to suppress these anti-government demonstrations by force.Ghonim's
whereabouts were not known until Sunday, when a prominent Egyptian
political figure confirmed he was under arrest and would soon be
released.Time and again during the two weeks of demonstrations,
protesters have pointed proudly to the fact that they have no single
leader, as if to say that it is everyone's uprising. Still, there seems
at times to be a longing among the crowds at Cairo's Tahrir Square, the
main demonstration site, for someone to rally around.The
unmasking of Ghonim as the previously unknown administrator of the
Facebook page that started the protests could give the crowds someone to
look to for inspiration to press on.Whether Ghonim forcefully
takes up that mantle remains to be seen, but he said repeatedly in
Monday night's interview that he did not feel he was a hero."I
didn't want anyone to know that I am the administrator," he said. "There
are no heroes; we are all heroes on the street. And no one is on their
horse and fighting with the sword."He looked exhausted and said he had been unable to sleep for 48 hours, but not because he was being mistreated.He
said he was snatched off the streets two days after the protests first
erupted on Jan. 25. After he left a friend's house, four men surrounded
him, pushed him to the ground and took him blindfolded to state
security. He said he spent much of the following days blindfolded, with
no news of the events on the street, being questioned.In
contrast, he said, in his release he was treated with respect. Just
before he was freed, he said, he was brought before Interior Minister
Mahmoud Wagdy -- installed only days earlier in a government reshuffle
-- in his office. The minister "talked to me like an adult, not like
someone of strength talking to someone weak" and then the new head of
the National Democratic Party escorted him home."This is because of what the youth did in the street," he said in the interview on private station Dream 2 TV.He
said his interrogators were convinced that foreigners were backing the
movement, but Ghonim asserted it was just young Egyptians "who love this
country." He also sought to debunk the government's accusations that
the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak's most bitter rival, was
involved in planning the protests.He referred to his arrest as a
"kidnapping" and a "crime" but also sounded conciliatory, saying "this
is not a time for settling accounts or cutting up the pie; this is
Egypt's time."He did forcefully place blame for the country's
ills on Mubarak's National Democratic Party and said the good among them
should abandon it and start something new to earn the people's respect."I
don't want to see the logo of the NDP anywhere in the country," he
said. "This party is what destroyed this country. The cadre in this
country are filthy."U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Monday
that two weeks of clashes have claimed at least 297 lives, by far the
highest and most detailed toll released so far. It was based on visits
to seven hospitals in three cities and the group said it was likely to
rise.While there was no exact breakdown of how many of the dead
were police or protesters, "clearly, a significant number of these
deaths are a result of the use of excessive and unlawful use of force by
the police," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights
Watch.

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