* Google executive's interview "moved millions"
* Executive was seized off the street
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By Marwa Awad and Andrew Hammond
CAIRO, Feb 8 (Reuters) - One man's tears provided a new impetus on Tuesday to protesters in Egypt seeking to keep up momentum in their campaign, now in its third week, to topple President Hosni Mubarak.
Wael Ghonim, a Google executive detained and blindfolded by state security for 12 days, broke down in a television interview on Monday after his release saying a system that arrested people for speaking out must be torn down.
"Ghonim's tears have moved millions and turned around the views of those who supported (Mubarak) staying," website Masrawy.com wrote two hours after Ghonim's TV appearance. In that short span, 70,000 people had signed up to Facebook pages supporting him.
Egypt's turbulent protests have entered their third week. Demonstrators have been camping out in Tahrir Square for days to press their demand that Mubarak, a U.S. ally who has ruled for 30 years, quit now.
On Tuesday, Ghonim joined them for another mass protest that drew in well over 100,000 people.
"You are the heroes. I am not a hero, you are the heroes," he told the cheering crowd.
"My condolences to the fathers and mothers who lost sons and daughters who died for their dream. These are the real heroes who gave up their lives for their country," he told Reuters afterwards. "I saw young people dying and now the president has a responsibility to see what the people demand," he said, adding these demands include Mubarak stepping down.
SEIZED OFF THE STREETS
Google's head of marketing in the Middle East, Ghonim was seized off the streets by plainclothes men two days after the protests began on Jan. 25 -- protests he had promoted by setting up a special Facebook page.
Neither Google nor his family had any clue where he was and feared for his life. In detention he was not informed of events outside and interrogated over what the authorities believed were foreign powers behind the Facebook campaign and Jan. 25 protest.
When the interviewer told Ghonim live on TV about some of the 300 people who died in the unrest while he was incarcerated, he cried.
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