Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian activist freed by authorities after being detained for 12 days, Wednesday said he is willing to die for his cause and it is “no longer the time to negotiate” with President Hosni Mubarak’s government.
In an interview with CNN, Ghonim also called on Egypt’s leaders to apologize for the blood shed in the weeks of political protests and, “If you are true Egyptians, if you are heroic Egyptians, it's time to step down."
Ghonim held up a notarized power of attorney, granting control of all his assets to his wife, and said, "I'm ready to die" to bring about a change in Egypt’s regime. The activist, who lives in Dubai with his wife and two children, said he had returned to Egypt for the protests.
Google's marketing head in the Middle East, Ghonim also called the Egyptian protests an Internet revolution.
“I'll call it Revolution 2.0. I just posted on Twitter yesterday, this is no longer the time to negotiate, unfortunately,” he told CNN’s Ivan Watson. “We went on the street on the 25th, and we wanted to negotiate. We wanted to talk to our government. We were, you know, knocking the door.
“They decided to negotiate with us at night, with rubber bullets, with police – police sticks – with, you know, water hoses, with tear gas tanks, and with arresting about 500 people of us,” Ghonim said. “Thanks, you know? We got the message.”
Ghonim, who protestors in Tahrir Square have hailed as a hero, repeated several times that “this is not about me.” He played a key role in organizing the protests, as administrator of a Facebook page that is widely credited with calling the first protest January 25.
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