Amnesty International has warned that Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa Wael Ghuneim is at serious risk of torture and other ill-treatment by Egyptian security forces after he was reportedly arrested in Cairo during mass protests.
Amnesty reports that his whereabouts are unknown after he was arrested by security forces on 28 January.
He was in Egypt on a business trip and attended a number of demonstrations including a protest in Tahrir Square, Amnesty reports.
Google and Twitter launched a new phone-based Twitter service last week in response to the Egyptian government’s internet shutdown (The Guardian). It is not known whether the Google executive’s detention is linked to this.
Press Gazette reported on Friday how government propaganda had led to an escalation in attacks on journalists in Egypt – with several British journalists among those attacked by mobs.
Here ABC News in the US has a detailed list of the many reported attacks against media workersin Egypt in recent days.
More from Amnesty here on its Protect the Human blog.
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