The mother of jailed Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel Fattah Friday marked six months without food after she launched a hunger strike last year to protest her son’s imprisonment in Egypt.
Laila Soueif, 68, began her protest on September 29, 2024, which she said marked the day Fattah was due to be released after completing a five-year sentence.
The London-based Soueif eased her strike after nearly 160 days in March after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he “pressed” for Fattah’s release in a call with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
She is now on a “partial hunger strike” consuming 300 calories a day through a liquid nutritional supplement, but has still not eaten any food.
Soueif was to attend a vigil opposite Downing Street later on Friday to mark the moment, the campaign group “Free Alaa” said in a statement.
Fattah, 43, a pro-democracy and rights campaigner, was arrested by Egyptian authorities in September 2019 and given a five-year sentence for “spreading false news”.
He was a key figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak and was given UK citizenship in 2022 through his British-born mother.
“The vigil takes place before Mother’s Day on Sunday (30th March), which also marks the end of Ramadan, which in previous years has been a time when prisoners have been pardoned in Egypt,” the campaign group said in a statement.
In February, Soueif was admitted to a London hospital with dangerously low blood sugar and blood pressure and given a glucose drip.
Fattah launched his own hunger strike on March 1 after hearing about his mother’s admission to hospital, which he continues, according to the campaign group.
Soueif, a mathematician and activist, has said she will go back on hunger strike again unless there is “a dramatic change soon and things are moving”.
“I know the step will mean I have a week or fortnight left to live,” she told The Guardian last week.
“It’s hard to believe that my mum hasn’t eaten for 6 months now. She should never have had to do something so extreme to free her son,” her daughter Sanaa Seif said in a statement.
“My family has been put through so much now, we desperately need Keir Starmer to do whatever he can at this stage to bring Alaa home to us.”
