Revolution will triumph in face of attacks against me: ElBaradei
Ahram Online , Sunday 11 Aug 2013
Former IAEA chief, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Egypt's current Vice President, ElBaradei complains of personal and professional attacks


Egypt's interim Vice President for Foreign Affairs Mohamed ElBaradei expresses his displeasure on Sunday over recent personal and professional attacks against him.

"Lies and defamation since January 2010 [when I returned to Egypt] in desperate attempts to keep tyranny alive: attacks on my identity, work, international relations, personal life," he published on his Twitter account.

"I say to them all: voicing out rights for freedom, dignity and human values will continue so long as I am alive and the revolution will triumph."

ElBaradei has been harshly criticised since the January 25 Revolution by both former regime supporters as well as Islamists.

Since he took up the position of VP in July he again came under attack from both supporters and opponents of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

Anti-Morsi groups complained that his stances weren't "solid enough" for Egypt's currently highly-divided political environment.

These accusations came as ElBaradei remains reluctant to sign on to the forcible dispersing of the Brotherhood sit-ins against Morsi's ouster.

In an opinion piece published last week by Al-Akhbar state-run newspaper, veteran writer Gamal El-Ghitani, the former head of Akhbar El-Adab literary magazine under Mubarak, called ElBaradei "dangerous" for both the state and the people.

Morsi's supporters, however, attacked ElBaradei saying he supports the "military coup" of 3 July against the Islamist leader. They decry that ElBaradei has "blood on his hands," since he was in office as vice president at a time when dozens of Morsi supporters were killed in bloody clashes with security forces.

ElBaradei, former secretary-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, arrived in Egypt in January 2010 and co-founded the National Association for Change alongside the Muslim Brotherhood and liberal forces.

After the fall of the Mubarak regime in February 2011, he began preparations for a presidential run, but bowed out of the race in protest over the decision to elect the country's president before drafting a new constitution – which would outline executive powers.

In April 2012, he founded, along with a number of intellectuals, the liberal Constitution Party.

ElBaradei continued to participate in the country's politics after former president Mohamed Morsi assumed office in summer of 2012.

He headed the umbrella opposition group, the National Salvation Front (NSF), in November 2012 after Morsi issued a constitutional declaration extending his powers and shielding his decrees from judicial review.

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