Laila Soueif’s body is becoming weaker and weaker
Doctors have warned her that – after eight months on hunger strike – she’s now at risk of sudden death.
But the strength of her resolve has not diminished at all.
Speaking to the BBC from St Thomas’ hospital in London, the 69-year-old British-Egyptian maths professor says that she “passionately” wants to live.
But she told the Today programme that she was prepared to die if that was what it took to get her son Alaa Abdel Fattah – Egypt’s most prominent political prisoner – out of jail in Cairo.
Calling on UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his government to find a way to get Egypt to release him, she says she believes she has “no other choice” but to continue to refuse calories.
Alaa Abdel Fattah – who is also a British-Egyptian dual national – played a prominent role in pro-democracy protests in Egypt in 2011 and has been in prison almost continuously since 2014.
His latest five-year sentence was imposed after he shared a Facebook post about a prisoner dying after torture.
Laila Soueif went on hunger strike in September 2024 – when her son’s sentence should have ended.
The Egyptian authorities refused to count the more than two years he spent in pre-trial detention towards his time served. And his family fear he is being used to set an example, and will never be freed.
“He finished his sentence for God’s sake. It was an unfair sentence rendered by a kangaroo court,” his mother says. “He should have been out of that jail on 29 September.”
