Student Twitters His Way Out of Egyptian Jail

If you’ve been dragging your feet on joining the tweeting army of Twitterers, the story of James Buck might just spur you to join.

James, an American student from University of California Berkeley was in Cairo studying the country’s leftists. While covering an anti-government protest on April 10, he was arrested along with his translator, Mohammed Maree. As he was being taken away, James took his cell phone, and posted a single word message on Twitter: “Arrested”.

The reactions were swift. Within seconds, his friends both in Egypt and in the US were made aware of his situation. One of his friends and a fellow blogger was able to update his blog frequently based on Twitter messages from James, whose cell phone had luckily not yet been confiscated by the police. His college hired a lawyer to get him out, and when he was let out of jail, another one word message let his friends know he was safe: “Free”.

James is currently organizing petitions to get Maree, whose whereabouts have not yet been confirmed, released too.