Twitter Saves Journalist from Prison

Text Message Gets Man Released from Egyptian Jail

Food staple prices have been rising rapidly around the world and riots have been taking place in several countries as a result. In Egypt, on April 6, there was a planned strike in a large factory in Mahalla, which is about two hours outside of Cairo. Covering the event, I was arrested by Egyptian police, and might still be in jail if it wasn't for Twitter.

That morning, the state security forces and military forces infiltrated the factory and shut down the strike ahead of time. Discontent from that spilled out into the street and that, combined with stress and fear of rising food prices, erupted into rioting which continued into the following night.

This was a true people’s revolt – there wasn't a lot of looting or fighting; I saw people lighting tires in the street or starting small fires or throwing rocks at police, but mostly they were chanting against the government, which is very unusual in Egypt.

By the third day, police had arrested and rounded up a lot of people – not just people who were participating in the riots, but people who were sitting in cafes or walking home from school, as preventative measures to quiet the town and silence the rioting. Around 300 people had been detained and many without being on the books so there was no record of where they were. Many of them were young men in their teens and even younger.

This created a third element, in that the families of the detained were getting increasingly worried about their family members and started small protests outside the prison. Arrested and Detained

On April 10, I was taking photos of the families trying to get information about their detained family members when I was kidnapped by security forces. It wasn’t an arrest like, “I’m a police officer and I need to take you in for such-and-such a reason.” I was grabbed, all of a sudden, from the middle of the crowd, along with my translator Mohammad. The crowd actually tried to get us out of there by pushing us into a cab to get away.

The police pulled up alongside the cab and told the driver in Arabic that I was from the CIA. For the record, that is not true – I think they make a lot more money than journalists! Then they took us to the police station.

Twitter Gets Me Out of Jail

About 6 p.m. on April 10, I sent out a text message to a group of people, including my Twitter account. “Arrested” was all I had time to type, but it got key information to a wide array of people right away.

Friends then started calling the embassy and my school - I’m a student at UC Berkley’s graduate school of journalism. They got a hold of the dean of my school who got a hold of the higher authorities at the university level.

Much had been made about me sending this Twitter message. My friend Mohammad had access to my mobile as well, but he didn’t have the background of privilege and an army of people to come rescue him. A mobile with no one to call doesn’t do you any good. People have made comments that Twitter was able to help me because of my position, and I know that.

I was detained for a total of 21 hours. Throughout that time, I was receiving text messages from friends, giving me advice and support; I even got a call from the Associated Press. The police’s interrogation technique consisted of coming in and threatening you and you saying, “No, I’m not going to do that” and then they leave you for a while to stew and get nervous. That’s when I used my cell phone.

Around 2 a.m., we were both taken to the prosecutor’s office and cleared of all charges.

Despite all this, I do hope to go back to Egypt to continue my work. I was cleared of any allegations so there doesn’t seem to be any reason I’m aware of not to go back. As journalists, it’s important not to let ourselves be intimidated by the people who want to silence the voices of the people.

What I was covering was what people were doing and what people had to say. I wasn’t writing a political opinion piece or participating in a political group; I was just taking audio from the street. If we say it’s too dangerous to cover those people’s stories, the thugs and the dictators will win and silence the media - and that’s very dangerous. I say, bring it on.