Wael Ghonim Biography

Ghonim, a marketing manager for Google, shot to international fame in February 2011 as the catalyst behind the anti-government protest movement in Egypt that ultimately led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. Ghonim organized the mass demonstrations anonymously as the administrator of the Facebook page, We Are All Khaled Said. The page, which has close to 600,000 supporters, was named in honor of a young Egyptian man allegedly beaten to death by Egyptian police in Alexandria in June 2010. Ghonim also used Twitter to rally Egyptians to the protest movement with tweets that included, "Freedom is a bless[ing] that deserves fighting for it." He acknowledged his role in the revolution in an emotional television interview in which he described his 12-day secret detention by Egyptian police.