Egyptian Protests Fueled by Anonymous Facebook Activist

The brutal killing of a young man who reportedly was beaten to death by police appears to have helped galvanize protesters in Egypt, stoking anti-government anger for months before thousands took to the streets in a bid to bring a 30-year regime to its knees.

Egyptians, it seems, have not forgotten about the June death of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man who, according to witnesses and his family, was publicly beaten to death by police in Alexandria, reportedly as punishment for possession of a video of the officers dividing the spoils of a drug bust.

A Facebook page created by an anonymous activist in Said's name has played a major role in the country's protests, rallying thousands of young Egyptians to rise up against President Hosni Mubarak and an oppressive government that rights groups say regularly employs torture and human rights violations to stay in power.

The page "We are all Khaled Said," which today had more than 36,000 fans, has provided kindling for Egypt's unrest for months. But, as Newsweek reports, the page seemed to take on new energy after the December suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, a university graduate and vegetable seller in Tunisia, sparked anti-government demonstrations across the Middle East.

Since then, the anonymous activist behind the page, who goes by "El Shaheed," or "The Martyr," has helped organize dozens of protests and called for the overthrow of Mubarak's decades-long regime.

El Shaheed, who communicates via a Gmail account and refused to give any details about his identity, said the protests that began online have taken on a life of their own. "Internet is down but people no longer need internet," he told AOL News via gchat Tuesday. The protests, he said, have become "fully organic" and no longer need to be organized online.

Last month though, the blogger told Newsweek that the wave of protests had renewed hope among Egyptian activists that they could topple Mubarak's government.

"A lot of Egyptians lost that hope years ago," the anonymous activist told Newsweek over Gchat. "Now people start to pay more attention to the activists, and there is a hope that we can make it."

El Shaheed, who refuses to offer any personal details that may reveal his (or her) identity, said social media, and Facebook in particular, had proven useful for the activists.

"Some of the videos we publish get shared on people's walls more than 30,000 times," El Shaheed told Newsweek. "That's how powerful a virus can be ... Once it's out, it goes everywhere. It's unstoppable."

In an e-mail exchange, the activist told The Wall Street Journal that he is not aligned with any political party but simply wants an end to police brutality in Egypt.

The Egyptian government repeatedly has shut down its citizens' access to the Internet in the past week, but El Shaheed's Facebook page remained active today.

"We were tortured, humiliated & lived in injustice & poverty for 30 years despite our enormous resources," the activist wrote early today on the page's wall. "Nothing justifies the continuation of this dictator. To all good people, your role is to protest peacefully & lobby your government to act. You are saving lives by doing that."

Images of Said's badly abused body shot across the Internet in the days and weeks after his death, offering a grisly rallying cry against Mubarak's government. The Ministry of Interior, which oversees the security police, denied the account of Said's death and said the man choked to death on a marijuana joint during his arrest. But The Associated Press reported that witness accounts, as well as an investigation into the death by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, concluded that Said was beaten to death by police.