"Rabaa (Rabia) sign”, made by raising four fingers which has become the symbol of the massacre in Egypt and Rabaa al-Adawiya Square where the anti-coup protests take place, dominates the whole world's agenda.
“Rabaa” meaning four or the fourth in Arabic has become the sign of anti-coup protests in Egypt. Just a few hours before the massacre on August 14, anti-coup protesters in Egypt tried to voice their demands to the world by raising their four fingers.
Firstly, a website called "R4bia.com" was founded within the scope of a campaign which is led by the activists in Turkey who were anti-coup, and later a hashtag of ‘Whatisr4bia’ was composed in Twitter, an online social networking service.
The hashtag has ranked among Trend Topics (TT) in a high increase in Turkey, and then took place among the world lists. It has become a global TT in which users from all parts in the world showed interest from Asia to Europe and from Africa to the USA.
Thousands of Turkish people released messages supporting civilians who held anti-coup demonstrations in Egypt via "Whatisr4bia" hashtag. A great number of users shared thousands of photographs in which they made "Rabaa sign" under this hashtag. Many Turkish channels also supported the campaign via releasing video clips in which Rabaa symbol became prominent in addition to news websites.
Thousands of users notably in Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Bosnia Herzegovina, Malaysia and Indonesia, and then in Europe and America shared both written messages and photographs under the hashtag of "Whatisr4bia".
"Rabaa sign", which is used as a freedom symbol spreading from Egypt to whole world, has been highly used as a profile picture on social media as well. Number of those using "Rabaa sign" as a profile picture is reported to be over 100 million.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
