Police arrested protesters in Tahrir Square and the roads leading to the U.S. Embassy early Saturday morning after days of protests over a video depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed as ruthless and a womanizer. Eyewitnesses claim that people were beaten and detained during the crackdown.

Traffic is flowing normally through the square again. However, security forces remain around entrances to the square. The arrests come a day after worldwide protests sparked by anger over the controversial video allegedly made by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula under the pseudonym Sam Bacile.

Friday’s nationwide demonstration was canceled by the Muslim Brotherhood, but protesters said they were still holding a ‘symbolic’ protest in Tahrir. Protests in Tahrir were mostly peaceful. About 1,000-1,200 protesters moved around the square chanting slogans and waving flags. Vendors sold drinks, T-shirts, flags and souvenirs. Anyone could pick up a small pyramid or Sphinx along with a black flag (not to be confused with an Al-Qaida flag).

One protester said he was there because he was angry about the video and about the United State’s response to the film, asking, “Why hasn’t the man been arrested?”

Protests in front of the U.S. Embassy near the square sporadically clashed with security forces. According to reports, the protesters threw stones, while security responded with tear gas. According to CNN, the Interior Ministry issued a statement that a number of security officers were injured, some from bird shot. Bird shot was blamed for the death of one protester on Friday.

Friday’s protests mainly targeted U.S. embassies. However, the German and British embassies were attacked in Khartoum and a Hardee’s and KFC were attacked in Tripoli. Seven people were killed during protests on Friday.

Many analysts and journalists who have extensively covered the region say the protests were about more than the video. According to some analysts, the protests have to do with pent-up anger over western imperialism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continued drone strikes, the sanctions on Iran and pro-Israel policies. Other analysts add that it is also about the frustration at domestic leaders who have been unable to effect change quickly.

“It’s domestic politics mixed with an attempt to make new nation states and political systems and institutions that are so vital,” Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, told The Christian Science Monitor.

Another reason, say analysts, is that there is a struggle going on between mainstream Islamic groups and the ultra-conservative Salafis. The Guardian’s Ghaith Abdul-Ahad writes that the Salafi agitation began long before the video was released. They attacked secularists and artists, worked along sectarian lines and launched confrontations with Coptic Christians.

Image Courtesy of   Hossam el-Hamalawy حسام الحملاوي

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Not for the first time at the beginning of 2011 the Egyptians decided to stand for their rights as a nation. After a series of peace protests and demonstrations the revolts grew into a civil war, in which around 840 people died and more than 5,000 were seriously injured. Was it worth it? Did anything change in Egypt?

The 2011 Egyptian Revolution was a turning point for this nation, fighting for a change. After thirty years under the rule of the same leader, the Egyptians felt strong and resolved to protect themselves against the oppression and the corruption in the African country. Their demands were not unattainable. The primary aim was to end the regime of the president Hosni Mubarak and the emergency law that gave unlimited power to the government and to the police. Did they succeed and what was to be Egypt’s fate?

On 11 February 2011 at 6 p.m local time Mubarak’s resignation was announced. This historical moment put an end to the governance than continued for more than a quarter of a century. Although the Egyptians managed to break the chains of the president’s regime, the country was faced with another problem – which road to take.

The authority was transferred to Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Chairmen of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. But despite everything, the protests of the citizens continued. The participants in the mass demonstrations in Cairo were hostile against the new rule, because their demands were not fulfilled. In the ill-fated Tahrir Square in the capital, hundreds of people continued to fall victims of their own desire to begin a new era in the history of Egypt.

The world leaders reacted positively to the tragic, but crucial events in the North African country, acknowledging the strength of the Egyptians, who according to the journalist Mohamed Hiakal “have become stronger than the regime itself.” In an interview, the US president Barack Obama said: “We should bring our children to become like Egyptian Youth”.

The society all around the world was following the news – the news about the nation, which will go down in history as the people fighting for justice and equality, things which are taken for granted in the 21st century, but which, unfortunately, are not allowed everywhere.

The country has not recovered yet, and hardly will it soon surmount the bygone year of protests and violence. But the ray of hope of the Egyptian nation that one day they will get what is theirs, has not died away. The radical revolution, kindled in cyberspace a year ago, cannot be extinguished so easily.

Now the Egyptians are reaping the fruits of their drastic actions. On 1 January 2012 the first freely-elected parliament in decades was chosen by the citizens. The next step for the progress of the Egyptian nation is the future presidential election in March 2012.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/

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Andreas Kaplan and Michael Heinlein define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content.

According to Kaplan and Haenlein there are six different types of social media: collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia), blogs and micro blogs (e.g. Twitter), content communities (e.g. YouTube), social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life “Wikipedia, Social media”.

Today it had become almost the main source for information and secondary source for advertisement in the world. Twitter as a social media is not as popular in the Middle East as facebook, which became a hit over night.

Twitter for Egyptians is either unknown, or not understandable, so in both cases useless, but worldwide it is a good communicational tool between companies and their buyers, celebrities and fans or people who share the same interest — all can communicate easily and find each other fast.

Although twitter is an easy, fast communication platform, Egyptians used to prefer facebook because it has much more diversity on offer. In Egypt, there are many social levels — the lower class, middle lower class, middle higher class and high class — but they all have internet access at either their home or internet cafés which makes it easy for them to connect to social media.

It was easy to understand facebook and how people can communicate through it, which made it popular fast. But for Twitter there were two reasons against it: it came second and was difficult to understand. Twitter in the past didn’t have the advertising on the web it has today which limited its outreach in countries such as Egypt.

And for those who knew about it, it was hard and obscure to them to understand how it actually worked. Eventually the Egyptian people learned about Twitter and some created accounts but usage was limited as often is the case with communities that depends on personal networks.

The story took a turn during the Egyptian revolution on January 25 where protesters used twitter to plan the millions of protest and to discuss it without the knowledge of the government. The twist made a lot of people want to join Twitter to be able to follow the current events and reach audiences worldwide to tell them about the revolution.

According to India Times, “approximately 15,000 citizens used Twitter accounts to find and spread information about the protests.” Twitter helped spread the thoughts of the protesters and the events from el Tahrir square. Reporters, ordinary people and foreigners tweeted worldwide about the revolution both before and during it.

After several hours of protesting, people worldwide would know what happened through Twitter updates. News channels quoted the protesters via Twitter and three days later the government blocked the site from the internet because they finally understood its power.

The administrators of the social network knew about it and made phone calls to people in Egypt so the revolution could continue to tweet its message. They even made televised announcements to let Egypt know the world was listening.

Unfortunately after the end of the revolution, few have continued to use their twitter account. The age group still using it are also still between 16 and 35 years of age, meaning older people have yet to catch on. Still, you can find shops and companies in Egypt which have chosen to keep their presence on the social media site and use it for advertisement.

Twitter had a big role during the revolution but afterwards, only a small amount of people have continued to use it. Despite the excitement and wonder of the events that led to the fall of Mubarak, Twitter remains an unremarkable communications platform in Egypt — simply the fastest platform for information dissemination for a limited amount of time.
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