An Egyptian Facebook activist and leader of the group known as the April 6 Youth has been arrested in Cairo, friends told Wired.com Wednesday in e-mails. But those accounts were contradicted by the activist himself. (See update, below.) Ahmed Maher, 30, gained prominence in 2008 as one of the co-founders of the April 6 Youth, a solidarity group launched to support protests. Organizing mostly online, especially on Facebook, it is a carefully decentralized network of activists, who have used the tools of social media to broadcast grievances with the Mubarak regime, mobilize support, evade the government’s ubiquitous security forces, and, now, help to bring the Mubarak regime to its knees.
Wired magazine published an article about the group in 2008. Its nascent, tech-fired rebellion helped ignite the revolution and the government backlash that has captured the world’s attention.
Maher and a friend launched a Facebook group to promote a protest planned for April 6, 2008. It became an internet phenomenon, quickly attracting more than 70,000 members. That protest died still-born, but Maher has continued to organize and has played a prominent role in the uprising of the past week aimed at toppling the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarark.
Word of Maher’s arrest came from two separate sources shortly after protesters began to clash with pro-government groups after Mubarak pledged step down in September. That signaled a major escalation of violence after days of largely peaceful protests. The arrest could not immediately be confirmed.
Sherif Mansour, a senior program officer at Freedom House in Washington, D.C., has been in close contact with Maher and his group for years, and is currently trying to get through to some of Maher’s peers to glean details.
Early Wednesday morning, Wired.com also received its first correspondence in five days from an April 6 group member. “I am so sorry for the delay[ed response] because there’s no internet connection in Egypt since last Friday,” wrote 28-year-old Waleed Rashed in a short message sent on Facebook. “I am OK and my friends also. We will be in the street till Mubarak go. No another way. Just pray to us and we will be in touch.” It remains unclear at this point how Rashed was able to get online.
Update 6:33 pm: Wired.com reached Maher on his mobile phone late on Wednesday night local time. He said that he had not been arrested. When asked whether he had been detained and roughed up by the police — a common practice under the Mubarak regime — Maher was unable to reply.
Photo by Joerg Klaus
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