EGYPT: Freed Google executive Wael Ghonim joins protests

Feb. 8, 2011 9:05 AM PT

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A young Google Inc. executive received a thunderous welcome when he joined a massive demonstration in Tahrir Square on Tuesday, the day after he was released from 12 days of detention, according to news reports from Cairo.

Many in the crowd said they were inspired by Wael Ghonim, who gave an emotional television interview Monday night in which he sobbed over those who have been killed in two weeks of clashes between protesters and security forces.

Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, administered a Facebook page that helped spark the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak’s oppressive regime.

The Associated Press reports that Ghonim spoke briefly to the crowd, telling them, “We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the regime.”

When he finished speaking, the crowd erupted in cheering, whistling and deafening applause, AP said.

Protesters also gathered outside the parliament building in the capital and in Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, Al Jazeera’s English-language network reported.

Full coverage of the uprising in Egypt: News, photos, video and more

-- Alexandra Zavis

Babylon & Beyond

Alexandra Zavis

Alexandra Zavis is a former writer and editor on the Los Angeles Times’ Foreign Desk who has reported from more than 40 countries. She spent a decade with the Associated Press, covering Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, among other war-torn places. After joining The Times in 2006, she has served as a Baghdad correspondent and as a California reporter covering poverty and veterans issues. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award for distinguished reporting on foreign affairs and was part of teams of reporters awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for foreign correspondence and APME’s International Perspective Award. She is a graduate of Oxford University and City University in London.

EGYPT: Freed Google executive Wael Ghonim joins protests

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