Google executive Wael Ghonim may be held captive in Egypt, and despite his unknown whereabouts, he has been named a spokesperson of an Egyptian protest group.
Al-Jazeera reports that Ghonim’s family has received “terrorizing” midnight phone calls from his captors that say Ghonim is being “taught a lesson”.
Khalen Wassef of CBS news was told by a leader of the “6th of April” youth movement group that Ghonim has been named their spokesperson in order to pressure Egyptian authorities to release him.
A senior member of the group told Wassef Thursday morning that if government leaders “want to talk to us, talk to Ghonim.”
The Egyptian government has not confirmed that Ghonim is being held.
Ghonim is Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa. He flew to Egypt to take part in the protests, where he regularly posted what was happening on his twitter account.
Ghonim’s ominous last Twitter post before he went missing last Friday said “we are all ready to die.”
Google has confirmed that Ghonim is missing and has set up an email address for information leading to Ghonim’s whereabouts: infoaboutwael@google.com as well as a U.K. phone number: +44 20 7031 3008.
Is he being held by the government or by an extremist group? This article is very confusing.
According to the SF Examiner, this Google executive is now a symbolic spokesman for one of the opposition groups who are protesting the Egyptian government.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/02/04/businessinsider-missing-google-exec-egypt-2011-2.DTL
The Chronicle says an Mr. Ghoneim may be released on Monday afternoon. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/02/06/state/n143634S10.DTL
Interesting report on Mr. Ghonim in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989504576127621712695188.html
If you can believe Twitter, Mr. Ghonim is now free: http://twitter.com/Ghonim/status/34673818375032832