Reply #1: Google Executive Emerges as Key Figure in Revolt

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TamerELG Tamer El-Ghobashy
WSJ.com - Google Executive Emerges as Key Figure in Revolt http://on.wsj.com/eQ9WbS #jan25
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MIDDLE EAST NEWSFEBRUARY 7, 2011
Google Executive Emerges as Key Figure in Revolt


Wael Ghonim, Google Inc.

By MARGARET COKER in Cairo, NOUR MALAS in Dubai and MARC CHAMPION in Alexandria

...

During his disappearance, Mr. Ghonim, a father of two who is in his 30s, emerged as a central symbol of the antigovernment protests, cast as the face of a movement and hero in the cause of democracy. Protest organizers in Cairo's central Tahrir Square adopted him as a symbolic leader. Suspecting his arrest—but having no proof—they declared in speeches that they wouldn't leave the square until he was freed. Marchers carried homemade signs emblazoned with his name. At the same time, some local media suggested the political activities of Mr. Ghonim, who is Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, make him a traitor to his nation.

On Sunday, Egyptian authorities broke the silence on Mr. Ghonim's fate, according to his brother, Hazem Ghonim. "They told us they'll probably bring him to us, and that he will likely be escorted by security," he said from Cairo.

Billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris also said on Sunday that Egypt's vice president told him Mr. Ghonim would be released. "The boy is a hero," Mr. Sawiris said. "When he is released he will become the living hero of this revolution."

Mr. Ghonim is counted among a small group of political activists in Egypt whose social-media savvy over the past year helped spark the massive demonstrations threatening Egypt's ruling regime. "I said one year ago that the Internet will change the political scene in Egypt and some Friends made fun of me :)," Mr. Ghonim wrote on his personal Facebook profile for friends after two days of swelling protests in Cairo. The next day, Jan. 28, he disappeared.

...


Protesters sit outside a Cairo shop marked with the word 'Facebook.' The social media site's pages, including one run by Wael Ghonim, were a virtual headquarters for the protest movement

...

—Geoffrey A. Fowler in San Francisco contributed
to this article.
Write to Margaret Coker at [email protected] and Nour Malas at [email protected]

Corrections

Wael Ghonim is head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa for Google, whose offices in the region are in Cairo and Dubai. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Mr. Ghonim is Google's top executive in the region and that the Dubai office is the company's regional headquarters.





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