By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded Cairo’s Tahrir Square Tuesday, galvanized by the release of a pro-democracy cyber activist as a revolt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak raged into its third week.
More first-time protesters came out, saying they had seen through what they called lies by the state media, and hundreds were streaming in after work to join the crowds.

An emotional interview with Google Inc. executive Wael Ghonim, just after his release Monday after 12 days in detention for Internet activism, also convinced some Egyptians that government claims of foreign conspiracies were baseless propaganda.

“I came here for the first time today because this Cabinet is a failure, Mubarak is still meeting the same ugly faces … he can’t believe it is over. He is a very stubborn man,” said Afaf Naged, 71, a former member of the board of directors of the state-owned National Bank of Egypt.

“I am also here because of Wael Ghonim. He was right when he said that the National Democratic Party is finished. There is no party left, but they don’t want to admit it,” she said, of Egypt’s ruling party.
Amr Fatouh, 25, a surgeon, said it was his first time protesting at the square because of his hospital duties.
“I hope people will continue and more people will come. At first, people didn’t believe the regime would fall but that is changing,” he said. 

Protesters who arrived in the square, past a cordon of troops and tanks that searched them for weapons but made no attempt to halt the demonstration, were greeted by huge new posters of the “martyrs” of their revolt.
“We are going in to support the people inside the square. They are the first line of defense,” said 26-year-old Mahmoud al-Naggar, who had come from Fayyoum, south of the capital, with a group of friends and made for Tahrir Square.
“We’ve heard there will be a million-strong demonstration today.”

Many also carried the symbols of the social networks Facebook and Twitter, which have become vital mobilizing tools for the opposition thanks to online campaigners like Wael Ghonim.
Ghonim has himself become a hero to many in the movement, having started one of its most popular Facebook sites and been detained by the regime following a day of protest on Jan. 27.

Freed late Monday, he gave an emotional interview to Egypt’s Dream 2 television channel.

“I was blindfolded for 12 days, I couldn’t hear anything, I didn’t know what was happening,” Ghonim said.
“I’m not a hero, I slept for 12 days,” Ghonim said.

“The heroes, they’re the ones who were in the street, who took part in the demonstrations, sacrificed their lives, were beaten, arrested and exposed to danger,” he added.

When the channel showed images of some of the young people killed during the protests, Ghonim bowed his head and wept.

“I want to tell every mother, every father who lost a son, I’m sorry. It’s not our fault, I swear, it’s not our fault, it’s the fault of everyone who was in power and held on to it,” he said.
Ghonim announced Tuesday that he was on his way to the square in a tweet to his followers, saying: “Egyptians are making history.”

While insisting his secretive arrest and detention had been a crime, he expressed some empathy for the officers who interrogated him, saying that some of them seemed sincere but misinformed Egyptian patriots.
“They were 100 percent convinced that foreigners are behind us, that someone manipulates and finances us,” he said. “We are not traitors.”

Ghonim told the channel that he  met Interior Minister Mahmoud Wagdi on the point of his release Monday, and confirmed reports that the new secretary general of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party had played a role in freeing him.

As fresh crowds gathered Tuesday, several thousand were already occupying the square sleeping under tents or rolled up in blankets at the foot of army tanks.

“Patriotic songs about the country used to sound exaggerated, but we own the country now,” said 34-year-old doctor Issam Shebana, who came back from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to staff a makeshift clinic in the square.

“Yesterday, one man in his 60s said: ‘We were cowards. We kept quiet all these years, but you’ve done it.’ It’s inspiring. It’s a rebirth,” he said.
“I never thought I’d sleep on asphalt with rain on my face and feel happy.” – AFP, Reuters