The mother of a British-Egyptian democracy activist imprisoned in Egypt is at “high risk of sudden death”, according to UK doctors, after a five-month hunger strike that has led to her hospitalisation in London.
Laila Soueif, 68, a maths professor, has lost 30kg during her 150-day hunger strike in which she has only consumed herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts.
Her son Alaa Abdel Fattah, 43, an icon of Egypt’s 2011 revolution and a secular critic of president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, completed a five-year prison sentence in September but has not yet been released.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer vowed on Wednesday that he would do “everything I can to ensure the release” of Abdel Fattah, describing it as a “really important case” and “an incredibly difficult situation” for the activist’s family.
Urged by Labour MP John McDonnell to pick up the phone to president Sisi to negotiate, Starmer told the House of Commons he would seek “phone calls as necessary” with the Egyptian government, adding: “I’ve raised it before, I’ll raise it again . . . I gave my word to the family.”
Abdel Fattah was convicted in 2021 for charges of “spreading false news undermining national security”, having already spent two years in pre-trial detention. Judicial authorities have refused to count that time towards the five-year sentence.
A doctor who examined Laila Soueif at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London after she was admitted on Monday night wrote that there was “an immediate risk to her life” owing to dangerously low blood sugar levels as a result of her hunger strike. But she has insisted she will continue with it and has refused to follow medical advice.
Soueif has repeatedly said she was convinced her son would never be released, and that the authorities would find ways of levying new charges against him to keep him in his prison. Abdel Fattah has been imprisoned for 10 out of the past 11 years, and only freed for six months during 2019 under the condition he spend every night in police custody.
A group of 25 international and Egyptian human rights groups, including Amnesty International, wrote earlier this month to David Lammy, UK foreign secretary, urging him to make a stand and for the UK to lead a joint statement on Egypt at the UN Human Rights Council.
“As you know, the human rights situation continues to deteriorate in Egypt. The authorities continue to crush dissent and stifle civil society, arbitrarily arresting thousands in recent years,” the letter said.
