LONDON (Reuters) – The mother of jailed Egyptian-British dissident Alaa Abd el-Fattah was taken to hospital on Monday night as she neared the 150th day of a hunger strike in protest against her son’s imprisonment in Egypt.
Laila Soueif, 68, who has lost nearly 30 kilograms in weight since starting her fast in September, was admitted to St. Thomas’ hospital after her blood sugar dipped to worryingly low levels, her daughter said in a post on X.
Abd el-Fattah, a software developer and blogger who rose to prominence as an activist in the 2011 Arab Spring, was jailed for five years in Egypt over a social media post, a sentence that followed several previous spells in prison, including before and after the uprising.
Soueif, a mathematics professor, has been on hunger strike, consuming only herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts, ever since Egyptian authorities failed to free Abd el-Fattah on a scheduled release date of September 29.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have raised Abd el-Fattah’s case with their Egyptian counterparts a number of times.
Starmer met Soueif this month, promising to do everything he could to secure Abd el Fattah’s release.
Abd el Fattah’s former prison mate, Australian journalist Peter Greste, joined Soueif in the hunger strike for three weeks last month.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, editing by Ed Osmond)
