Revolution 2.0. Wael Ghonim

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      I wrote the first article on the page: “You People Deprived of Humanity, We Will Extract Justice for Khaled Said.” It was an emotional, spontaneous piece of writing. I vowed that I would not personally abandon the fight for Khaled until his attackers were punished. The response was instant, and within a single hour the number of members climbed to three thousand.

      Egyptians, my justice is in your hands.

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      I spoke on the page in the first person, posing as Khaled Said. What drove me, more than anything else, was the thought that I could speak for him, and if even a single victim of the regime could have the chance to defend himself, it would be a turning point. Speaking as Khaled gave me a liberty that I did not have on ElBaradei’s quasi-official page. It also had greater impact on the page’s members. It was as though Khaled Said was speaking from his grave.

      Even though I was proficient at classical Arabic (al-fusHa) from my school years in Saudi Arabia, I chose to write my posts on “Kullena Khaled Said” in the colloquial Egyptian dialect that is closer to the hearts of young Egyptians. For the generation born in the eighties and nineties, classical Arabic is a language read in the newspapers or heard during news reports on television and comes across as quite formal. By using colloquial Egyptian, I aimed to overcome any barriers between supporters of the cause and myself. I also deliberately avoided expressions that were not commonly used by the average Egyptian or that were regularly used by activists, like nizaam, the Arabic word for “regime.” I was keen to convey to page members the sense that I was one of them, that I was not different in any way. Using the pronoun I was critical to establishing the fact that the page was not managed by an organization, political party, or movement of any kind. On the contrary, the writer was an ordinary Egyptian devastated by the brutality inflicted on Khaled Said and motivated to seek justice. This informality contributed to the page’s popularity and people’s acceptance of its posts.

      The number of responses, and the incredible speed with which they came, indicated that administering “Kullena Khaled Said” was going to take a lot more time and effort than administering the ElBaradei page. I definitely needed help, and my experience thus far with AbdelRahman Mansour made him the perfect choice. I added him as the page’s second admin. During the first few weeks AbdelRahman was quite busy with school and other commitments, but he tried his best to help whenever needed.

      I closely monitored news on the case and found the prosecutor’s report that acquitted the police force. I wrote:

      The prosecution issued a preliminary report that the cause of death was drug overdose. Not only have you murdered me, but you also want to stain my reputation? God will reveal the truth and repay your lack of conscience.

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      Mostafa al-Nagar, ElBaradei’s campaign manager at the time, had written a moving article on his personal page entitled “We Are the Murderers of Khaled Said” after he visited Alexandria to verify the story. I published the article on my page without mentioning the writer’s name. I did not want people to make the link between al-Nagar and the page and eventually identify the anonymous administrator.

      As the page’s membership base grew, so did my personal commitment. I felt the stirrings of a rare opportunity to make a difference and to combat oppression and torture. I was angry, and I was not the only one. On its first day, 36,000 people joined the page. Some of them wanted to learn more details about the case, some sought to offer sympathy and support, and others joined out of curiosity because they had received an invitation from a Facebook friend. Images of Khaled before and after the assault spread like wildfire. Similar crimes had taken place in the past, all too frequently, yet their stories had not spread too widely. It was the visual documentation of Khaled’s terrible death, along with the fact that he was from the middle class, that catalyzed this huge reaction. The image was impossible to forget, and thanks to social media, it was proliferating like crazy.

      By the end of the first day there were more than 1,800 comments on the page. Some people wondered why another page had been launched when the first one, “My Name Is Khaled Mohamed Said,” had already reached 70,000 members. “Why not unite our efforts?” they asked. I considered joining forces and closing the page I had created. Yet the aggressive tone adopted by the first page continued to worry me.

      I advertised “My Name Is Khaled Mohamed Said” on “Kullena Khaled Said” and declared that we all worked for a common cause. I urged people to link to the page and requested that we all coordinate our efforts. To my delight, the admins of the other page reciprocated. It was becoming obvious that this cause could unite a lot of people.

      Several prominent opposition politicians publicly condemned Khaled Said’s brutal killing. Also, a public funeral for Khaled had been announced for Friday, June 11. I publicized the funeral on the page and asked that as many people as possible attend. I also posted an edited video of various acts of torture by members of the police force, in the hope that Egyptians would finally confront the dark side of the regime and realize that any one of us could be the next victim.

      About a thousand people, many of them political activists, took part in the Alexandria funeral. A protest to denounce Khaled Said’s murder was also organized in Cairo by the April 6 Youth Movement, among other groups and activists. My hopes for justice were rising steadily. I asked the page members to join the protest, which was planned to take place outside the Ministry of Interior. But the security forces were prepared and decisive: they arrested many protesters and surrounded the rest with double their number of police officers, nearly making a perfect circle. From afar — as later seen in a photograph — the image was quite symbolic. It perfectly represented what the regime was doing to our country. Worse yet, the media, under the usual pressure from State Security, ignored the protest. As with many past examples of human rights abuses, the public was kept in the dark.

      The media’s suppression of the physical world made the virtual world a critical alternative for promoting the cause. On the Facebook page, I began to focus on the notion that what had happened to Khaled was happening on a daily basis, in different ways, to people we never heard about. Torture is both systematic and methodical at the Ministry of Interior, I said. One of my most significant resources was the “Egyptian Conscience” blog, Misr Digital, by Wael Abbas. From 2005 to 2008, Wael Abbas actively published every torture document, image, or video that he received from anonymous sources. He was arrested several times by State Security, yet he and other brave bloggers continued to expose the horrifying violations of human rights that were taking place in Egypt.

      I apologize for posting pictures of torture cases, but I swear that I had not seen most of them before. It seems I lived on another planet … A planet where I went to work in the morning and watched soccer games and sat at cafés with friends at night … And I used to think people who discussed politics had nothing better to do … But I am appalled to see a terrifying Egypt that I never knew existed … But by God, we will change it!

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      I posted links to other torture videos, which СКАЧАТЬ