Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School and the U.S. Department of State Convene the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit Dec. 3-5 2008
Summit in New York to Bring Together Global Youth Groups, Tech Experts to Find Best Ways to Use Digital Media to Promote Freedom and Justice, Counter Violence, Extremism and Oppression
Panels will discuss a variety of practical topics, including How To Build Transnational Social Movements Using New Technology, How To Use New Mobile Technologies and How To Preserve Group Safety And Security
http://photos.state.gov/libraries/unesco/231771/pdfs/Alliance_of_Youth_Movements_Summit.pdf
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In December 2008, one April 6 member visited the United States to take part in a State Department-organized “Alliance of Youth Movements Summit” in New York City. He also reported to his State Department contact that the April 6 group “would like to call for another strike on April 6, 2009, but realizes this would be ‘impossible’ due to SSIS [state security] interference,” and said that the government had driven the April 6 Youth Movement group’s leadership, including Maher, underground.
In June 0f 2010 Google executive Wael Ghonim anonymously created the “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page, a memorial to blogger Khaled Said who had posted a video of police allegedly splitting up drugs confiscated in a bust on June 6, 2010; the police tracked him down and beat him to death on the street.
A large movement coalesced around the “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page.
The April 6 Youth Movement picked Jan. 25, 2011 as their protest date because it’s a public holiday: Police Day. In previous years they had always marched on Jan. 25 to mock the holiday. As Maher (April 6 Youth Movement leader) said: “Because how can we be expected to celebrate these thugs, torturers, criminals?”
Fifteen days before the date, the April 6 group set up an “operation room,” as Maher described it in an interview. Its purpose was “to discuss routine details including assessing the reach of our calls to protest with regards to internet websites, looking at the data and information that was being provided to citizens, and studying innovative mechanisms of protesting which aimed to overcome the methods that the state security services always use to pre-empt demonstrations and protests.”
Two days before planned protest, Maher said the group organized cells of 30-50 activists; each cell was to regroup in a pre-selected spot in Cairo, but only one person in each cell would direct the cell to the “main rendezvous point.”
The April 6 Youth Movement issued specific demands on Feb. 6, 2011:
* Mubarak must immediately resign
* The national assembly and senate must be dissolved
* A “national salvation group” must be established that includes all public and political personalities, intellectuals, constitutional and legal experts, and representatives of youth groups who called for the demonstrations on Jan. 25 and 28. This group would form a transitional coalition government for a transitional period. The group would also form a transitional presidential council until the next presidential elections.
Amidst the burgeoning protests and unrest Mohamed ElBaradei called for a transitional government and he mounted a campaign for the Egyptian presidency against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Ghonim created a campaign webpage and a Facebook page for ElBaradei - in Feb 2010.
Mubarak was forced out Feb 11, 2011.
The military ruled until June 2012 when the Muslim Brotherhood took over with the election of Morsi.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/inside-april6-movement/
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/09/146636605/wael-ghonim-creating-a-revolution-2-0-in-egypt
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The Khaled Said incident was used for another purpose.
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That’s all for now. These last few posts explain my off-hand remarks in #48.
I forgot to mention, during the protests Obama called for Mubarak to step down.
Wow.
Dedicated thread, that’s all I can say.