Mother of British-Egyptian political prisoner goes on hunger strike

Laila Soueif has not eaten for more than three weeks and is past the stage of feeling hungry.

In London to campaign for the release of her British-Egyptian son, Alaa Abdel Fattah, the 68-year-old maths professor insists – stoically – that she’s “not feeling bad at all”.

She went on hunger strike the day after what should have been the end of his five-year prison sentence – though his relatives, along with human rights groups, say that he should never have been in prison at all.

Alaa Abdel Fattah is Egypt’s best-known political prisoner. A blogger, writer and outspoken pro-democracy activist, he has been in jail for most of the past decade.

His mother’s hunger strike – she’s surviving on water, rehydration salts and sugarless tea or coffee – is a sign of his family’s increasing desperation.

“I’m keeping it up until Alaa is free or I’m taken to hospital in a terrible state,” she tells me. “His life has been on hold for 11 years. It can’t go on.”

Alaa Abdel Fattah was arrested in September 2019, six months after finishing a previous five-year sentence.

He was convicted in 2021 of spreading false news, for sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt. The Egyptian authorities are refusing to count the more than two years he spent in pre-trial detention towards his time served.

Although he acquired British citizenship in 2021, Egypt has never allowed him a consular visit.

In opposition two years ago, the UK’s then shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, called for “serious diplomatic consequences” if access wasn’t granted immediately and Alaa Abdel Fattah was not freed.

But his family are deeply disappointed with how the current government, and the previous one, have handled his case. They believe the UK has more leverage with Egypt – a key ally – than it’s prepared to use.

“I’m not a fool. I don’t expect the government to ruin billions of dollars’ worth of trade deals for my son,” says Laila Souief, who lives in Cairo but was born in London.

She does, however, expect Mr Lammy, now that he is foreign secretary, to put pressure on Egyptian ministers to take action, she says.

“At least don’t give them photo opportunities like the one I saw recently of David Lammy grinning ear to ear with the Egyptian foreign secretary.”

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “Our priority remains securing consular access to Mr El-Fattah and his release. We continue to raise his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian government.”

The family’s campaign has been supported by Richard Ratcliffe, who knows only too well what drives someone to go on hunger strike – as he himself did for his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

“We reached a point where we needed to do something drastic to shake the government’s complacency, and remind ministers they had a role beyond waiting and wringing or washing their hands,” he tells me of his family’s campaign.

“Alaa’s family will be fully aware that hunger strikes leave scars.”

Alaa Abdel Fattah’s own hunger strike in 2022, as Egypt hosted the UN climate conference, led to international pressure for his release and an improvement in his conditions in jail.

He is now allowed to read books and watch sports on TV. But he is “down most of the time” according to his mother, and despondent about the future and his chances of release.

He now only wants to leave Egypt to be with his 13-year-old son, who is on the autism spectrum and attends a special needs school in Brighton.

She says other countries have done deals allowing their citizens jailed in Egypt to be freed and deported if they give up their Egyptian nationality.

“He has no wish to lead the Egyptian opposition from Brighton,” she told me. “He’s going to be too busy with Khalid.”

As for her and her hunger strike, she says she wants to make herself a “headache” for both the British and Egyptian governments. “That’s the least of what I hope to achieve.”