The ramifications outside of Egypt are troubling as activists and journalists struggled to understand the situation there, as Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian dissident and human rights activist in the United States, told Deutsche Welle.
“The Internet, and the Tunisian precedent made the world take notice of events in Egypt from day one, whereas it took months for them to notice the importance of developments in Tunisia, but even there, the Internet played a crucial factor,” he said.
“The fact that Egyptian authorities are doing their best to cut off communications and access to the Internet demonstrates its importance from their perspective.”
‘Reverting back to Protest 1.0’
But on the streets of Cairo, the lack of communication presents more immediate problems according to Abdulhamid.
“The value of the Internet and mobile technology was and is to facilitate direct real-time communications between activists themselves in the first place,” Abdulhamid told Deutsche Welle. “Communicating with outside supporters comes second.”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 