‘Risk to Life' for Woman on Hunger Strike Over Son Jailed in Egypt

New York Times

27-02-2025

The mother of a jailed British Egyptian activist has been hospitalized and is at risk of sudden death, a doctor has said, as her hunger strike to demand her son's release reached 151 days.
Laila Soueif, the mother of Alaa Abd El Fattah, one of Egypt's best-known political prisoners, has survived since late September on water, rehydration salts and sugarless tea and coffee to push for his release from a Cairo prison, her family said.
Ms. Soueif, 68, a mathematician and professor who is also a British citizen, started her hunger strike after it became clear that Mr. Abd El Fattah, 43, who had served a five-year sentence, was not going to be released as expected in September.
She told The New York Times last fall that she would not back down in her campaign to pressure the British government to use its diplomatic and economic ties with Egypt to secure his release. 'When people ask, 'What do you think you're doing?' I say, 'I'm creating a crisis,' ' she said in an interview.
Ms. Soueif lives in Cairo, but has been spending time in Britain throughout her hunger strike and on Monday was admitted to a hospital in London after her blood sugar and blood pressure dropped to dangerously low levels.
A doctor treating Ms. Soueif at St. Thomas and Guy's Hospital wrote that her condition was now extremely serious, in a letter shared by her family and supporters on social media.
'I have explained the gravity of her condition and the serious harms which will result from continued fasting,' wrote the doctor, whose name was redacted from the public version of the letter. He added, 'there is now immediate risk to life including further deterioration or death,' and that Ms. Soueif 'is in particular at high risk of sudden death with continued fasting.'
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, said he would continue to raise the case at the highest levels of the Egyptian government and push for Mr. Abd El Fattah's release.
'It is an incredibly difficult situation for them,' Mr. Starmer said, adding that he had met with the family a few days ago and 'will do everything I can to ensure the release in this case. That includes phone calls as necessary.'
Mr. Abd El Fattah became a prominent voice of the Egyptian uprising in 2011 that toppled the country's authoritarian ruler, Hosni Mubarak. But an Islamist political party took power in Egypt's first democratic presidential election, and then a widespread backlash to its rule allowed President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to later seize power. Since then, Mr. el-Sisi has cracked down on dissenting voices.
Mr. Abd El Fattah has spent much of the last decade in prison after two earlier arrests, in 2006 for protesting for judicial independence and then in 2011 for an article critical of Egypt's military. He was detained again from 2013 until March 2019 on charges of organizing an illegal protest. Months later, in September 2019, he was arrested again and sentenced in 2021 to five years for sharing a Facebook post about abuse in prison.
He had been set to be released from prison in September 2024, but the Egyptian authorities said that they would not count his two years of pretrial detention toward his sentence, an increasingly routine practice in the country. Mr. Abd El Fattah is now scheduled for release in 2027, although he and his family fear he could be held indefinitely.
While in jail, he successfully applied for British citizenship through his mother, who is a dual national.
Several British lawmakers wrote a letter to Mr. Starmer last month urging him to 'intensify efforts across the whole of government to make Alaa's urgent release a reality.'
But pressuring the Egyptian authorities on individual cases can backfire, diplomats in Cairo have said. The British have pressed for consular visits with Mr. Abd El Fattah and called for his release since he gained British citizenship in 2021, but they have had no success. And Mr. Abd El Fattah's family worry time is running out.
'If Keir Starmer would pick up the phone and speak to President Sisi, I believe that he can secure the release of my brother, and save my mother's life,' Sanaa Seif, Mr. Abd El Fattah's younger sister, said in a statement, adding, 'Every moment that he waits means that my mother is more likely to die.'