Khader Adnan is a Palestinian prisoner who was arrested for supposedly being a member of the Islamic Jihad. He was arrested without any charges actually brought against him. He wasn't tried in court and didn't know when he would be released. As a response, Adnan started a hunger strike that lasted for 66 days. Adnan was finally able to end his hunger strike - and incidentally will be released from jail in mid-April - thanks to Twitter.
Mainstream media ignored Adnan's story; it just wasn't interesting enough. But on Twitter, it came alive. Online Twitter activists started trending the story with the hashtag, #KhaderAdnan. And just like that, Khader Adnan was finally getting the notice he deserved concerning his unjust imprisonment and hunger strike.
Up until February 23rd, #KhaderAdnan was tweeted 54,000 times. Yeah. One of the organizers, Leila Saleh, was quoted saying, "Because of the lack of coverage on Palestine in mainstream news, a lot of activists indulge in social media sites like Twitter in order to find information. A lot of unnoticed stories usually end up online from activists, or citizen journalists if you will, who are on the ground in Palestine. This is very vital for cyber activists like us.
"So because of reasons like this, a lot of us were aware of Khader Adnan’s story. Around the 40th day of his hunger strike, many activists were trying to contact the media to cover him but we had no luck. I know I contacted a few of my journalist friends for help but was unsuccessful. I was distraught because I thought Khader, by the 45th day of his hunger strike, was at the end of his road and wouldn’t live very long. I, along with many others, became desperate. So we just did what any cyber activists would do – brought attention to Khader ourselves. Having seen how powerful the Internet is with Arab uprisings, we decided to try our luck."
Basically, she says that she and the other activists used Twitter to find out information and gain media coverage.
Twitter helped save this guy. If not for Twitter and these activists, Khader Adnan would be spending the rest of his life in prison, unless he died from starvation first. Twitter can be used for good, not just for following the happenings of Miley Cyrus or Charlie Sheen. Twitter helped save Khade Adnan from an unjust arrest.
This story is similar to Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger who was arrested following the uprising last year. He was also on a hunger strike (his lasted for four months), and was able to end his strike and earn his release via other activists tweeting about his imprisonment.
These activists are using Twitter like crazy, tweeting and hashtagging anything that could help get these prisoners recognition and help shorten if not end their sentence.
Maybe we could all try and bring some notice to this new hunger striker, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja. He's been on hunger strike for 25 days now, and could use some help. His crime? Fighting for human rights in Bahrain. Hm.
Here's the Twitter account surrounding his imprisonment: @khawajastrike
Leslie out!
@see_you_sLATER
I'll be back with more Hamza Kashgari updates soon! And I might start following Khawaja's strike as well. I'll let you know.
Comment please! And link us to your friends!
Article used:
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/02/23/how-twitters-trending-topics-helped-catapult-a-human-interest-story-into-the-spotlight/
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