Top story: Only hours after his release from an Egyptian jail cell, Google executive Wael Ghonim described his imprisonment and his role in organizing the protests that have rockedEgypt over the past two weeks in a televised interview. Ghonim, who directs Google's marketing efforts in the Middle East and North Africa, said that he was "kidnapped" by Egyptian police on Jan. 28 while entering a taxi and detained for 12 days.
Ghonim also announced that he was the creator of some of the Facebook and YouTubepages that helped Egyptian youth organize during the earlier days of the unrest, and served as a rallying cry to focus public anger at the regime during that time. Ghonim said that he created a popular Facebook page commemorating Khaled Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian who was beaten to death by police in Alexandria in June 2010. The police would later try to cover up the crime by falsifying autopsy reports of the causes of Said's death.
Ghonim broke down in tears during the interview when told how many Egyptians had died during the current unrest. His imprisonment has turned him into a symbol for the technology-savvy youth that sparked the unrest in Egypt, with many taking to Facebook and Twitter to ask that he assume a leadership role in the protest movement going forward.
Iran's opposition petitions to protest: In a test for Iran's hardliners, Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi requested permissionto organize a protest in solidarity with the protesters in Egypt.
