Gigi Ibrahim

Biography

Gigi Ibrahim (also mentioned as Gihan Ibrahim, born December 2, 1986)[1] is an Egyptian-American citizen journalist and activist. During the Egyptian revolution in 2011, she reported events about the protests and became a face of the events for much of the Western media. Ibrahim was born in Long Beach, California to Egyptian parents although she soon moved to Egypt, where she lived until she was 14. Her family subsequently returned to California, where she began attending a local Catholic high school. She graduated from high school in 2005, attending Orange Coast College at first before transferring to The American University in Cairo in 2008. She became involved with the Revolutionary Socialists organization and graduated in 2010 with a degree in political science. Ibrahim became an organizer of the protests in 2011 and used Twitter to document events that took place during the revolution. Her tweets additionally helped human rights groups to document arrests and state violence during the revolution. Western news media treated her as a face of the revolution. After the 2013 coup d'état, Ibrahim chose to stay in Egypt and continue her involvement in activism and protests. She later co-founded a shoe manufacturing company in Cairo. Her younger brother is Ahmed Hassanein, an American football player for the Detroit Lions.