CAIRO: The National Association for Change (NAC) will take legal action against an independent newspaper for participating in a smear campaign against reform advocate and member of the National Coalition for Change Mohamed ElBaradei, the association’s spokesman, told Daily News Egypt.
Spokesman Abdel Rahman Youssef, however, did not reveal exactly what the next steps will be, adding that they have yet to discuss it with ElBaradei.
The campaign began on a Facebook page entitled “Secrets of the ElBaradei family: the modest have all passed away,” which displayed pictures of ElBaradei’s daughter in a swimming suit and images of the former UN nuclear watchdog chief and his family at events in front of what appears to be glasses of wine.
The pictures and the allegations accompanying them, were then reprinted by a local independent daily Al-Youm Al-Sabei, which later pulled the story from its website.
But ElBaradei has accused Egypt’s current regime of leading the smear campaign.
In an interview with independent daily Al-Dostor, ElBaradei was quoted as saying that the campaign is “the only response the regime has to those calling for democracy.”
"Using private personal photos for political defamation is a new low which could open the gates of hell on the government for which a similar campaign could be used to morally and financially defame the current regime. But using these tactics would be beneath us. We are confident that the Egyptian people with take no heed to this type of public slander and this move has actually caused a wave of sympathy," Youssef said.
While the consumption of alcohol is not banned in Egypt, religiously conservative members of Egyptian society frown upon drinking and “immodest” female dress.
Since his retirement ElBaradei has spearheaded a campaign for political reform centered on seven demands listed in a petition that has attracted over 600,000 signatures.
While ElBaradei has not officially announced that he intends to stand for election, supporters have been running a campaign calling on him to join the 2011 presidential race.
The official response to the campaign as reflected in state-controlled newspapers has attempted to discredit ElBaradei by suggesting that his years spent abroad as a diplomat means that he is out of touch with Egypt.
However, ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) member Ali Eddin Helal denied NDP involvement in the publication of the photographs, telling Al-Jazeera that the Facebook page is a “violation of privacy.”
A fan of the Facebook page named Eng-Ayman Abdulhamid Elarian asks in a discussion on the Facebook page: “Muslims and Christians alike” on whether “their religion permits them to have faith in someone who doesn’t preserve God’s amanah [promise] in relation to his daughter?”
Elarian also asks: “Do you accept being led by an individual … whose daughter asserts categorically that she is an atheist?” — a reference to ElBaradei’s daughter reportedly listing her faith as “agnostic” on her Facebook profile.
Finally Elarian suggests that the fact that ElBaradei’s daughter is married to a British national “will influence ElBaradei’s decisions” and that state secrets may be divulged via his daughter.
Many of those commenting on the page have condemned the publication of the photographs and the page as a whole, with one Facebook user saying “there is nothing wrong in the pictures. The only thing wrong is the mind of the person who stole them.”
