Egypt ex-VP slams rights situation under al-Sisi regime

ISTANBUL (AA) – Mohamed ElBaradei, who briefly served as vice-president following Egypt’s 2013 military coup, has decried the country’s human rights situation under President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's rule. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In a Thursday tweet, ElBaradei, who served as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1997 to 2009, said that Egypt’s poor human rights situation was “hurting the country’s future”. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Currently based in Vienna, ElBaradei named several political activists who, he alleged, had recently been targeted by the al-Sisi regime.</p> <p><br></p> <p>&quot;Engineer Yahya Hussein Abdul Hadi was arrested and his whereabouts remain unknown, while Ashraf Shehata and Mustapha al-Najjar have both disappeared,” ElBaradei tweeted. </p> <p><br></p> <p>He went on to note that Abdul Moneim Abul-Fotouh, a candidate in Egypt’s 2012 presidential poll, along with activists Shadi Ghazali Harb and Hazem Abdel-Azim, was currently languishing in solitary confinement.</p> <p><br></p> <p>ElBaradei, who has been a vocal critic of the al-Sisi regime since leaving the country in late 2013, described the above-mentioned activists as “only a few of countless examples”.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The Egyptian authorities have yet to comment on ElBaradei's assertions.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Egypt’s human rights record is the target of frequent criticism by both local and international rights groups.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The authorities, for their part, typically dismiss the criticisms as “baseless”.