Mohamed ElBaradei: "If Not Now, When?"

The Nobel Prize recipient is being held in apparent house arrest in Cairo, but he continues to speak truth to power.

From Truthout:

If Western leaders, who have backed the dictator Mubarak for 30 years, cannot stand before the Egyptian people today and say unequivocally, "we support your right of national self-determination," when can they do it?

That's the question that Egyptian democracy leader and Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei has put before Western leaders today.

Speaking to The Guardian UK in Cairo, before the planned protests today, ElBaradei stepped up his calls for Western leaders to explicitly condemn Mubarak, who, as The Guardian noted, has been a close ally of the US:

"The international community must understand we are being denied every human right day by day," he said. "Egypt today is one big prison. If the international community does not speak out it will have a lot of implications. We are fighting for universal values here. If the west is not going to speak out now, then when?"

Giving forceful illustration to ElBaradei's words that "Egypt today is one big prison," Egyptian police later doused ElBaradei with a water cannon and beat supporters who tried to shield him, AP reported, then trapped ElBaradei in a mosque by surrounding it with tear gas.

Read the whole thing.