New7Wonders President and Founder Bernard Weber today added his voice to those congratulating the Egyptian people still celebrating President
s resignation yesterday after 18 days of protests. New7Wonders itself has in the past been on the receiving end of the Mubarak regime’s actions to suppress our free and public voting platform.
“Today all of us at New7Wonders feel a special bond with the people of Egypt, home to the only surviving Ancient 7 Wonder, the Pyramids of Giza,” Bernard Weber said. We salute the bravery and decency of the Egyptian people, who have used their willpower, the internet and mobile technology to achieve a historic change, in the same way as the hundreds of millions of online and mobile voters in the New7Wonders campaigns are also participating in the making of history.”
Recounting his visit to Egypt in 2007, to promote voting for the great Pyramids for the man-made New 7 Wonders of the World, Bernard Weber says: “The entire New7Wonders team was sealed in the hotel, with 18 of Mubarak’s henchmen blocking any visits from the public and the media, and all because Dr. Zahi Hawass, until recently Mubarak’s Minister for Antiquities and Vice Minister for Culture, felt his ego had been harmed by our campaign. Somehow he believed he owned the wonders, whereas as New7Wonders shows every day, it is the people of the world that own the wonders. Thanks to a last-minute change of our air ticket from EgyptAir to Swiss, and a race from one side of Cairo airport to the other, we managed to escape without our film being seized, or being arrested.”