Mother of detained Egyptian activist urges UK govt to intervene

Laila Soueif has not eaten anything for 53 days, going on a hunger strike after her son Alaa Abdel Fattah was not released from Egyptian prison after completing a five-year term in September.

Her monthly visits to him in prison in Egypt last 20 minutes, where she gets to talk to him over the phone, separated by a screen.

While his health and prison conditions are "fine," Soueif, 68, said Thursday that "on another level he's completely hopeless".

"He doesn't think he's ever getting out of prison," she said in an interview with AFP at her daughter's home in London on Thursday. "He doesn't believe that there is a future in which he is a part."

Abdel Fattah, a 43-year-old British-Egyptian citizen, was arrested by Egyptian authorities on September 29, 2019.

Two years later, he was handed a five-year sentence for "spreading false news" in a Facebook post on torture in Egypt's prisons.

His mother called the trial a "farce".

His family maintain that he should have been released this year, having completed his sentence with time spent in pre-trial detention is taken into account, as is customary in Egyptian law.

When September 29 came around and he was not freed, Soueif decided to go on hunger strike, subsisting on just water, tea and coffee and rehydration sachets three times a day.

While the first phase of Soueif's strike was painful, she said she feels "quite normal now", despite losing weight "very quickly".

"I believe that if he's not released now, he will not be released in two years' time. The authorities will find another excuse to keep him detained," said Soueif.

"So really, I don't see a way forward except to push nearer and nearer to crisis point."

 'Something concrete' 
 

Abdel Fattah has been behind bars for the better part of more than a decade over his activism during Egypt's 2011 uprising. He was granted UK citizenship through his British-born mother in 2022 while he was in prison.

Rights groups say there are tens of thousands of political prisoners in Egypt, held under poor conditions and subject to ill treatment and abuses by the authorities.

Now more than 50 days into her hunger strike, Soueif, a maths professor and rights activist, said she remains "more resolved" than ever.

"(In) my experience of the Egyptian authorities, I know that if you back down, they try to crush you completely," she said.

"And with my experience of the British authorities, I know that they can keep you hanging forever."

Soueif is scheduled to meet UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy on November 27 for the first time since the new Labour government came to power.

When Lammy was opposition foreign affairs spokesman, he joined Abdel Fattah's family to protest outside the foreign ministry and called for his release multiple times.

"He's been in power now since July. I expect him to implement some of the things he said a British government should implement," said Soueif.

"I don't know what I will hear on the 27th. I hope I will hear something concrete."

 'Not in vain' 
 With friendly relations, Soueif believes the UK government in London "absolutely" has "leverage" over Cairo to secure her son's release.

"I mean this isn't Iran we're talking about, this isn't China we're talking about, we're talking about Egypt, where the Egyptian state is completely aligned with the Western governments," she said.

"There is no way for the British government to claim that it can't do anything about it and the whole thing is in the hands of the Egyptian government.

"So get my son released and release yourselves from the headache that is... me and my daughters, otherwise, I promise you, this headache will never be lost.

"Even if I die, I will live on like Banquo's ghost, and you will have to live with it", she added, referring to the apparition that haunts Macbeth in Shakespeare's play.

Soueif says her next meeting with her son at the end of November "might be the last time I see him".

"I say to my son, the only dream that's left to me is to spend at least a few months with you and your sisters and my grandchildren in normal circumstances," she added.

"And if this proves too much... then I hope that you will be able to achieve it with your sisters and your child, and I hope that what I'm doing now will not be in vain."