Ahmed Maher
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Biographical Information
According to a Wired article from 2008: "Maher created the April 6 youth movement with a woman named Israa Abdel-Fattah. They had become friendly two years earlier as volunteers for the El-Ghad Party. Maher had already been politically active; he was arrested in 2006 during a sit-in alongside judges protesting state interference with the judiciary. Abdel-Fattah, 27, had never taken part in a demonstration. She worked in the human resources department of a Cairo company and had only recently begun volunteering at El-Ghad. They were both Facebook users, of course, busy posting in various political forums. But to Maher Facebook was an echo chamber, not a movement...
"The duo launched the April 6 group on March 23. They used their real names for their Facebook profiles, and they were both listed as administrators for the group. That night, they sent out 300 invitations urging people to join. By the next morning, 3,000 people had signed up. Invitees weren't just joining — they were recruiting everyone they knew. It was the kind of viral growth Silicon Valley executives fantasize about, and the chain reaction was just beginning..
"But he has at least two things going for him: sincerity and bravery. "Maher is an example of a person who can make things happen on the Web," says Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. "He's a regular guy who became fed up with corruption and gained the courage to act against it."" [1]
Resources and articles
Related Sourcewatch
References
- ↑ Cairo Activists Use Facebook to Rattle Regime, Wired., accessed February 9, 2011.
