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Friday, February 3, 2012

Riveted to Young Woman's Tweets While I Eat Lunch


She choked on tear gas while I ate my sandwich. It was noon at the Subway in Oshawa where I'm attending a social media conference, but night in Egypt - and I just couldn't break away from her frantic tweets.

They outlined:

Her anger at the density of tear gas used.
Her concern for the people run over by police in front of her.
Her panic at the young man who was beaten severely nearby and needed an ambulance.
Her fears for friends and pleas for information from other Twitter users in the crowd.

Her twitter handle is @nadawassef and for 40 minutes I was scrambling through the streets of downtown Cairo with her. The contrast couldn't have been more stark.

My human rights have been secured through not much effort on my part.

She's still working on hers.