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College Student Twitters His Way Out of Egyptian Jail

by Terrence O'Brien on April 16, 2008 at 08:17 PM

Journalism Student Arrested in Egypt Twitters his Way to Freedom
We've heard the micro-blogging service Twitter called a lot of things -- everything from fun and indispensable, to frivolous and stupid. Now, you can add lifesaver to the mix. At least one man, James Buck, can thank Twitter for his freedom after being picked up, along with his interpreter Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree, by Egyptian authorities while taking pictures of a demonstration.

Buck, a U.C. Berkeley graduate student of journalism, managed to type out a simple one word message -- "Arrested" -- to his network of followers on Twitter. Friends, fellow students and journalists quickly sprang into action by contacting U.C. Berkeley, the U.S. embassy in Egypt, the Associated Press, and other media outlets. The next da, Buck walked out of jail a free man with a U.C. Berkeley hired lawyer at his side and the U.S. embassy on the phone.

Buck is now spearheading an effort to free his interpreter Maree and other other imprisoned journalists in Egypt by drawing more media attention to the struggles against censorship in the Middle East through his writing, and, of course Twittering. [Source: Mercury News]

Tags: btsnews, censorship, journalism, twitter

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