…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end
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Online Warriors of the Arab Spring

by Courtesy

iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring premieres Sunday, June 19, 8:00pm ET & PT

CNN correspondent Amber Lyon reports from the digital edges of the democratic revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain on the movements spreading through North Africa and the Middle East. Using computers and cell phones, and social media like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, young citizen journalists have leveraged the technology of the Internet to call out injustices, demand democratic change, organize protests, and share news about how to evade authorities desperately trying to contain the spread of revolution.

CNN Presents – iRevolution: Online Warriors Of The Arab Spring debuts Sunday, June 19 at 8:00p.m. ET and PT it replays on Saturday, June 25 at 8:00p.m. ET and PT on CNN/U.S.

Though the historic changes sweeping the Middle East and North Africa have been collectively dubbed the “Facebook revolution,” Lyon reports how the digital roots of reform were actually sown years before the extraordinary street demonstrations of 2010 and 2011. Riadh Guerfali, whose online handle is “Astrubal,” is one of the founders of Nawaat, a crowd-sourced digital newspaper in Tunisia. In 2007, he launched a salvo with his exposé about the misuse of the president’s official airplane. His site was banned by the Tunisian government within days of its launch. Later, Astrubal created TuniLeaks, a website hosting the first set of WikiLeaks releases. The revelation that even the U.S. government suspected rampant corruption within the Tunisian regime, spawned even more outrage that ultimately led to President Ben Ali’s resignation.

From Tunisia, Lyon’s team travels to Cairo to report on activists Gigi Ibrahim and Mona Seif who are using the Internet to hold the new Egyptian government accountable for its actions, including allegations of torture. They take Lyon to the streets of Tahrir Square where activists use Twitter to battle alleged government enforcers. “Piggipedia” is a rogue’s gallery photo-sharing website used by Egyptian protestors to post the identities of authorities reported to have harassed demonstrators; the “Tahrir Diaries” serves as a digital blog that captures the testimony of protestors who report being emotionally, physically, and sexually tortured by authorities. …more