‘I’ll starve myself until I collapse to secure my son’s release from Egyptian prison’, vows grandmother
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Exclusive: Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been in prison in Egypt for more than 10 years on charges the United Nations says are unjust. In the Christmas cold outside the Foreign Office, 68-year-old grandmother Laila Soueif is starving herself.
![[Alaa Abdel Fattah plays with his young son in Cairo on a boat on the River Nile in the summer of 2019, just months before he was sentenced to five-years in prison]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/10/07/11/newFile-2.jpg)
White lines are being chalked onto the pavement in front of her, one for each day she has been on hunger strike. After the eightieth line, the words “Free Alaa” follow. The strike is intended to put pressure on the British government to secure the release of her son, pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is in jail in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. He holds British citizenship - his 13-year-old son, Khaled, lives in Brighton - but consecutive British governments have failed to demand his release seriously.
![[Eighty white lines have been chalked on the pavement outside the Foreign Office, one for each day she has been on hunger strike]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/20/11/IMG_6662.jpg)
Living only off sugarless green tea and rehydration salts, this is Ms Soueif’s most extreme call for help. She has already lost nearly 25kg. “Either my son comes out of prison or I collapse,” Ms Soueif says, wearing a coat now several sizes too big for her. “Once I am unconscious, it is not my business what happens.”.
![[Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe‘s husband Richard Ratcliffe has called for Mr Fattah’s release]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/11/12/12/292c2fe6ec5f9f9072e4ffdd574d92c6Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzMxNDk3Nzcz-2.34205102.jpg)
Mr Fattah has spent more than 10 years in prison over two stints, denied by the Egyptian authorities access to the British consulate, despite this being his right as a citizen. The second five-year sentence, for posting on Facebook about the death of an activist in police custody, expired on 29 September. But the date came and went.
![[Mr Fattah is a pro-democracy campaigner]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/09/26/20/UK_Egypt_Activist_41972.jpg)
