Wael Ghonim
Wael Ghonim ( born December 23, 1980 in Cairo ) is an Internet activist from Egypt. He was known from the 7th February 2011 at the course of the revolution in Egypt in 2011 worldwide.
2011 marked the American Time magazine Wael Ghonim in the Time 100 list of the most influential personality in the world.
Professional Activities
Ghonim studied in Cairo computer science, finance and marketing. In 2005 he founded the now leading in Arab states finance portal mubasher.info. In 2008 he was an employee at Google Inc. for the Middle East based in Dubai.
Role in the revolution
Ghonim founded in June 2010 under the pseudonym El Shaheed ( " Martyr " ), a Facebook page titled "We are all Khaled Said". He wanted to remind you of an Egyptian blogger who had arrested the two Egyptian secret police and killed after his question about the legal basis for this by blows.
The Facebook page quickly found the support of many, especially younger Egyptians. This called Ghonim 2010/2011 in the network to a planned for 25 January 2011 the first demonstration against the regime of Hosni Mubarak in the wake of the successful revolution in Tunisia. Many of the signatories of his call now formed groups to organizational support to an analog Egyptian revolution.
After tens of thousands had followed the demonstration only took plainclothes police Ghonim as about 1,500 other Egyptians on 28 January in a further protest rally near the central Tahrir Square in Cairo firmly. They blindfolded him and took him to an unknown state prison. The arrest was filmed by protesters with a mobile phone camera and the network spread so that a variety of Egyptian protesters and media representatives tried to Ghonims release. The company Google introduced a telephone number for witnesses. Other protest groups appointed the missing Ghonim symbolically their spokesman.
Ghonim was released on February 7; were about the same Internet sites, including Facebook, reopened in Egypt, the Egyptian state authorities had shut down by then. In an interview with Newsweek magazine Ghonim confirmed on the same day that he was the founder of the Facebook page for Khalid. In the Egyptian private channel Dream TV, he talked about his detention and rejected allegations that he and his supporters were traitors. He had not been tortured in prison, but I know nothing of the events, the authorities have also informed none of his relatives of his detention. He was asked to resign, among others, Hussam Badrawi, the Secretary General of the National Democratic Party of Egypt, were questioned after the conclusion of the protest and have him then. He was not a hero but those who have risked their lives on the road, were heroes. When he heard about some people who had been killed during the protests, he wept and asked the families of the victims for forgiveness: His group is blameless, who, who held their power would have to be responsible for these acts.
On February 8, he was greeted on another central protest rally in Tahrir Square of hundreds of thousands of protesters and called on them to demonstrate to the satisfaction of their claims on. A new Facebook page under the title " I instruct Wael Ghonim on behalf of the Egyptian Revolutionary speaking " found within 24 hours 130,000 supporters. International media now reported Ghonim and suspected that he could be the spokesman of the young, not organized in political parties independent Egyptian regime opponents.
On February 10, Ghonim called for in the adoption of an imminent resignation of President Mubarak on the demonstrators to go home. On the following day he responded to criticism of it: He gave the interview before Mubarak's evening speech in which he refused his resignation, and it was published prematurely against his intentions. He wanted to be a spokesman of the people. At the same time he published a list of demands to the Egyptian army, including the demand to release all political prisoners.
On 18 February 2011 Ghonim was of followers of a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al -Qaradawi, prevented from speaking to the demonstrators in Tahrir Square.
After Mubarak's resignation on 11 February 2011 Ghonim said in a telephone interview with the U.S. journalist Katie Couric, the continuous reports of foreign journalists from Cairo would have saved thousands of Egyptians life and are therefore part of the successful revolution. A leadership role for the democracy movement, he refused again.
Ghomin called the events in Egypt Revolution 2.0, which had gone out of Facebook. He emphasized the positive role of social media to organize and acceleration of democratic movements: Wool is a people liberate from a dictatorship, then one must give him access to the Internet today. He wanted to thank Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook, one day in person. There, one could also inform that dictatorship in the Middle East could be toppled next. However, just as the Egyptian blogger Noha Atef he put the focus of the revolution to the people they realized. You are the true heroes.