Ex-IAEA director Mohamed El-Baradei is back in Cairo, and his supporters are asking him to stay, Gamal Essam El-Din reports After more than six weeks away from Egypt, during which time he visited the United States, Germany and Cameroon, Mohamed El-Baradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is back to Cairo. On Sunday El-Baradei made a surprise visit to Old Cairo. He visited the historic mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas, the Hanging Church, the Church of Mar Guirguis and the Coptic Museum. El-Baradei's supporters, including the cyberspace activists of his Facebook website and the 6 April Movement, were present, chanting "Go ahead Baradei... do not hesitate". Leading members of the National Assembly for Change (NAC) which El-Baradei founded last February also attended, including George Ishaq, former coordinator of Kifaya, the political dissent movement. El-Baradei first visited the Hanging Church, the Coptic Museum and the Church of Mar Guirguis before heading on foot to the Mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas where he performed afternoon prayers. At the end of his Old Cairo visit El-Baradei issued a statement condemning "the regime's oppression of labour protesters". "It is saddening to see the regime arrest so many of its citizens for the simple reason they were peacefully demonstrating for change," said the statement. "I would like to take this opportunity to state that legitimacy of the regime is based on how far it respects the rights of citizens." El-Baradei's Sunday visit was his second to Old Cairo. It was, however, brief, and did not include the kind of hand shaking and hugging of members of the public that marked his March visit to the district of Gammaliya. The visit also failed to elicit the wide coverage, on television and in the print media, of earlier outings. Many observers say El-Baradei's prolonged absence from the Egyptian scene has caused rifts among his NAC supporters. Hassan Nafaa, professor of political economy at Cairo University, wrote in the daily Al-Masry Al-Yom on Sunday that he is no longer interested in serving as the NAC's spokesman". According to Nafaa, "the prolonged absence of El-Baradei stripped the NAC of momentum." Former NAC and opposition figures have been increasingly vocal in criticising El-Baradei's performance. Mamdouh Qenawi, chairman of the Free Liberal Constitutional Party who earlier appealed to El-Baradei to join his party and stand as its candidate in next year's presidential elections, now accuses the NAC of "opportunism". "I want to ask El-Baradei one simple question," said Qenawi. "What change do you want, and if you really do want it, why not remain in Egypt?" Hamdi Qandil, NAC's media coordinator, disclosed that the assembly's leading members held an open meeting with El-Baradei on Sunday. "NAC members told El-Baradei that he must stay in Egypt in the next period because this is a necessity to keep NAC's momentum on the street," Qandil told the daily Al-Masry Al-Yom. Qandil said NAC members plan to meet again with El-Baradei today. "Until now," Qandil said, "El-Baradei emphasised that he can not stay in Egypt all the time because he has a lot of international commitments and obligations to meet." In an interview with the German-based website Qantara, El-Baradei continued to insist that he will only consider a presidential bid if the constitution is amended to allow independent figures to run freely. El-Baradei also defended his meetings with Muslim Brotherhood leaders. "I told them that I was against a religious state in Egypt and they assured me that they support a civilian state." El-Baradei argued that the "Muslim Brotherhood might be a conservative religious movement but it has never been an ally of Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden." El-Baradei also said a lot of ordinary people supported him and that "together we can achieve change". Egypt, he said, had been undermined by corruption, favouritism and a lack of transparency. He pointed out that "more than 42 per cent of the Egyptian people live under the poverty line and 30 per cent are illiterate," and took the 1952 July Revolution to task for bequeathing the country to military leaders who had turned Egypt into "a one-state party headed by a president with draconian powers". Nafaa said the NAC will hold a meeting tomorrow in El-Baradei's villa on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road. "We will conduct a comprehensive review of the NAC's performance and discuss future strategy." A statement by the NAC on Sunday said some of its supporters had faced police harassment in recent days. 'Some of our supporters were arrested in the Upper Egypt governorate of Assiut," the statement said, "while prominent member of the NAC Hamdi Qandil has been interrogated by prosecution authorities on the charge of insulting and slandering the foreign minister, Ahmed Abul-Gheit." El-Baradei plans to visit Europe next week.
