If the ongoing Egyptian people's revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak in just 18 days -- after 30 years of dictatorship -- quickly engulfed the whole country, its beating heart was always Cairo's Tahrir Square (in Arabic, "Liberation Square"), for many years a gay cruising mecca.

And gay people were among the millions of Egyptian citizens who made the revolution possible and joined the crowds who occupied the square to demand democracy and freedom from oppression.

This revolution was motored by young people through the Internet, and one of them was a well-educated, 22-year-old gay blogger and medical student who uses the pseudonym Ice Queer ("It's a pun on `Ice Queen,' as I'm a calm, cool person," he explained). He was present in Tahrir Square during much of the protest, including last Friday, February 11, when Mubarak finally fell.

CAIRO - He organized his first demonstration while still a student in 1998, then got arrested and tortured by Egyptian police two years later at age 23. Now he has seen the fall of the president he spent his adult life struggling against.

For 33-year-old activist Hossam el-Hamalawy, though, Egypt's three-week youth revolution is by no means over -- there remains a repressive state to be dismantled and workers who need to get their rights.

"The job is unfinished, we got rid of (Hosni) Mubarak but we didn't get rid of his dictatorship, we didn't get rid of the state security police," he told The Associated Press while sipping strong Arabic coffee in a traditional downtown cafe that weeks before had been the scene of street battles.

The activism career of el-Hamalawy typifies the long, and highly improbable, trajectory of the mass revolt that ousted Mubarak, Egypt's long-entrenched leader. Once a dreamer organizing more or less on his own, el-Hamalawy's dreams suddenly hardened into reality. The next step, he says, is the Egyptian people must press their advantage.

1. Egyptian Ministerial change expected very soon. Just waiting for military approval. #Egypt #jan25 about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPad
2. PM Shafik has been speaking for an hour. he is trying to say he wants to change the cabinet but no one offered the position is accepting. about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPad
3. Shafik Prime minister of Egypt is giving a hilarious speech about his attempts to change the ministers!! #Egypt #jan25

BAGOUR, Egypt -- In a town he represented in Parliament for 46 years, Kamal al-Shazli left his mark. There is the Kamal al-Shazli School on Kamal al-Shazli Street, around the corner from the Kamal al-Shazli Mosque, which is a little ways from the cafe where Mr. Shazli held court when he was the only man in town who got things done.