Israa Abdel-Fattah

Long before the Arab Spring, a young Egyptian woman named Israa Abdel-Fattah organized the first Facebook-generated general strike in Egypt in 2008. Abdel-Fattah, dubbed Facebook Girl, called for a peaceful strike in support of workers in the industrial town of El-Mahalta El-Kubra. She also called the strike to protest a myriad of social ills, including police torture, fabricated criminal charges against innocent people, unfair wages and a corrupt judiciary. From her courageous post, she became a symbol of resistance against political corruption and injustice.

Abdel-Fattah co-founded the April 6 Youth Movement and then created a page on Facebook, calling for a general strike on April 6, 2008. The news spread like wildfire and on what would normally be a busy workday in Cairo was anything but, leading the New York Times to write, “The eerie emptiness of the normally teeming streets of Cairo signaled the depth of discontent with President Hosni Mubarak's government." A few days later, Egyptian security forces arrested her and detained her for two weeks.

The Youth Movement grew into a popular political party. Abdel-Fattah reappeared again this year during the January protests in Egypt. She was active on the Internet, and also on the ground, updating Al Jazeera TV with the latest news related to the opposition.