‘I’m in uncharted waters’: Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s mother weeks away from collapse

Laila Soueif, bundled in a thick down jacket, sat on a folding chair outside the gates of Downing Street. Beside her stood a placard bearing a beaming photograph of her son. Her voice was barely audible, her body frail, yet her determination remained remarkably firm.

Her son is Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British-Egyptian writer and activist, who played a key role in the 2011 Egyptian revolution that toppled then-President Hosni Mubarak. He has been persecuted by Egyptian authorities ever since, spending nearly a decade in prison.

On September 29, Abd el-Fattah was supposed to complete his five-year sentence for “spreading false news,” but authorities refused to release him and would not count the two years he spent in pre-trial detention toward his sentence. Soueif began her hunger strike that day. She had been on hunger strike for 117 days when she spoke to Middle East Eye, just one day away from the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution on January 25.

“I’m starting to feel very, very tired. My blood sugar level is hovering around 50 all the time, which is very low. In fact, if it goes any lower, I should be hospitalised,” Soueif told Middle East Eye. Her legs swell if she stands for too long, so she remained seated in her folding chair for the duration of the interview. The 68-year-old’s hunger strike has lasted longer than any previous one, leaving no benchmark for how long she can continue. “Even the doctors say it’s uncharted territory,” said Soueif, who estimates she has a few weeks at most before she will have to be hospitalised. But she vowed that she will not eat unless she sees “decisive action” from the government to secure her son’s release, surviving only on tea, coffee and rehydration salts.

Each morning, Soueif sits outside Downing Street, awaiting news of her son. The scene is poignant, and tourists stop to ask about the smiling man in the photograph. She previously visited the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) daily, but she moved to Downing Street because she believes only a conversation between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi can secure her son’s release. “Starmer is the one who should persuade Sisi to release Alaa. I don’t think anyone else can persuade him,” Soueif said.

Her vigil has failed to break months of inaction from the UK government. After years of deadlock under the Conservative government, Abd el-Fattah’s family had hoped the new Labour government would do more. But his release date came and went, and months have passed with little change. On January 7, a government spokesperson revealed to Politico London Playbook that Starmer had written to Sisi urging him to release Abd el-Fattah. But Soueif responded that she “cannot wait for letters to go back and forth” and demanded Starmer speak to him directly. A letter she sent to Starmer a week ago has also gone unanswered. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who was once a vocal advocate for the campaign, visited Cairo the day before, meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

London Playbook reported on Thursday that Lammy had delivered a “strong message” to his Egyptian counterpart in the meeting, urging Abd el-Fattah’s release. However, despite Soueif’s plea to “bring Alaa back on the plane,” Lammy returned empty-handed. “Every single person in the Foreign Office tells me that Alaa is a top priority, but nothing happens,” Soueif told Middle East Eye. “I think nothing will happen unless Sisi gives the nod. Starmer is the one who should persuade Sisi to release Alaa. I don’t think anyone else can persuade him,” she said.

Soueif said she has no time to reflect on the significance of the 14th anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. She is too busy checking whether friends have been arrested amid the crackdown that often accompanies anniversaries by the Egyptian authorities. “Every year on January 25, the government starts arresting people as a precaution,” Soueif said. “So I never have time to analyse how I feel. I just go into practical mode, asking if people are okay, and if they’re not, sharing Facebook posts about their arrests.”

In recent weeks, Egyptian authorities have increased their crackdown on those considered to be dissidents. On January 19, prominent human rights defender Hossam Bahgat was summoned for questioning over a statement published by his organisation, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). On January 13, Nada Mougheeth, the wife of detained Egyptian cartoonist Ashraf Omar, was arrested by security forces after giving a podcast interview in which she revealed details of her husband’s arrest. The run-up to the anniversary has also seen a wave of extradition requests targeting exiled dissidents. These include Egyptian poet Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was deported from Lebanon to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) earlier this month.

The UAE and Egypt requested Qaradawi’s extradition after he posted a three-minute video on Twitter saying he hoped the country’s future would not be hindered by Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Soueif suggested that fears of a new uprising in Egypt following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may also be fueling the wave of arrests. “People are very angry and the economic situation is dire,” Soueif said. “I think the situation could explode at any moment, and it will be much more violent than anything we saw in 2011 or even 2013,” she said.