BBC
Laila Soueif hasn’t eaten in more than three weeks and is past the hunger stage.
“I don’t feel bad at all,” the 68-year-old mathematics professor, who is in London campaigning for the release of his British-Egyptian son Alaa Abdel Fattah, stoically insists.
She went on a hunger strike the day after his five-year prison sentence was supposed to have expired, but his relatives and human rights groups say he should never have been in prison.
Alaa Abdel Fattah is Egypt’s most famous political prisoner. The blogger, author, and outspoken democracy activist has spent most of the past decade in prison.
His mother’s hunger strike, subsisting on water, rehydrating salts and unsweetened tea or coffee, is a sign of the family’s growing desperation.
“I’m going to leave it like this until Ara is released or I’m taken to the hospital in bad condition,” she says. “His life has been on hold for 11 years. It can’t continue.”
Alaa Abdel Fattah was arrested in September 2019, six months after completing his previous five-year sentence.
He was convicted in 2021 of spreading false news for sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt. Egyptian authorities have refused to count the more than two years he spent in pretrial detention toward his time served.
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Alaa Abdel Fattah (pictured in 2019) spent years in prison
He acquired British nationality in 2021, but Egypt has never allowed him a consular visit.
Britain’s shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, objected two years ago, saying there would be “serious diplomatic consequences” if access was not granted immediately and Alaa Abdel Fattah was not released. insisted.
However, his family is deeply disappointed in the way his case was handled by the current and previous governments. They believe Britain has more influence over Egypt, a key ally, than it is prepared for.
“I’m not a fool. I don’t expect the government to ruin trade deals worth billions of dollars for my son,” says Laila Swief, a London-born Cairo resident.
But now that Mr. Ramy is foreign minister, she says, she expects him to put pressure on Egypt’s ministers to take action.
“At the very least, don’t give them the opportunity to take a photo like the one I saw recently where David Lamy was having an earful and a laugh with the Egyptian foreign minister.”
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said: “Our priority remains securing consular access to Mr. El Fattah and his release. We will continue to press his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian government.”
The family’s campaign is supported by Richard Ratcliffe. He knows what drives people to go on hunger strike, as he did with his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
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Richard Ratcliffe (left) went on hunger strike to pressure authorities to secure the release of his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
“We must take drastic action to break the government’s complacency and remind ministers that they have a role to play in more than just wringing their hands, wringing their hands and waiting. It got to the point where it was,” he told me about his family’s campaign.
“Alaa’s family will be well aware that the hunger strike leaves a scar.”
Alaa Abdel Fattah’s own hunger strike in 2022, when Egypt hosted the United Nations Climate Change Conference, led to international pressure for his release and improved conditions in prison.
He is now allowed to read books and watch sports on TV. But his mother said he was “depressed most of the time” and discouraged about his future and possible release.
He now wants to leave Egypt just to be with his 13-year-old son, who is on the autism spectrum and attends a special needs school in Brighton.
She said other countries have agreements that allow their citizens imprisoned in Egypt to be released and deported if they renounce their Egyptian citizenship.
“He’s not going to lead the Egyptian rebels from Brighton,” she told me. “He’ll be busy with Khalid.”
As for herself and her hunger strike, she says she wants to be a “headache” for both the British and Egyptian governments. “That’s at least one of the things I want to accomplish.”
