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CAIRO — “My mother, if she dies, her body will return to Egypt, and I will pray for her at Omar Makram Mosque, even if I’m alone, and the boots and wasps of the world won’t stop me,” wrote Sanaa Seif, as she and her family watch their mother’s body wither away.
The specter of death that now approaches Laila Soueif cannot be ignored as her health continues to deteriorate. The 69-year-old British-Egyptian math professor has been on a hunger strike for more than 240 days to protest Egypt’s imprisonment of her son, the human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah.
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El-Fattah was arrested in Egypt in September 2019 and given a five-year sentence in 2021 for “spreading false news,” by sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt. He should have been released on Sept. 29, 2024 (the day Soueif started her hunger strike), but the Egyptian authorities refused to count the more than two years he spent in pre-trial detention toward his time served and did not release him.
Soueif was admitted to a London hospital last week with dangerously low blood sugar and blood pressure. She is refusing glucose treatment and has said that she was prepared to die if that was what it took to free her son.
Many express their fears of her imminent death, turning solidarity into public appeals and statements directed at Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, including from outside Abdeen Palace in Cairo.
The body as a space of protest
“I can’t back down because, in the end, I’m buying my children’s lives. The situation my children are in must end, even if the price is my own life.” Soueif has turned her body into a space of protest without spectacle or appeal for heroism. She speaks not only as a mother but also as a citizen who deeply understands the meaning of justice and sees silence in the face of injustice as a betrayal — both intellectually and morally. Often underestimated as a mother, she surprises all when she transforms into a symbolic force immune to submission.
When Soueif goes on hunger strike, she is not only “Alaa’s mother,” she also embodies a broader maternal function: a mother who refuses silent rage and addresses the state with her hunger. Just like Luz María Caro, the mother of a disappeared person in Colombia, who began an open-ended fast in 2004 after the courts failed to protect her.
Soueif writes one of the noblest chapters of feminist and civil resistance in the contemporary Arab world.
Soueif says: “My children’s lives have been stalled for more than 10 years. Alaa’s life is completely frozen in prison, and Sanaa has put hers on hold to run after her brother, paying dearly for it, and Mona is barely starting to piece her life back together — she can’t afford another pause.”
She holds the state directly responsible for the disintegration of her family. She also draws a tragic image of the cost of activism in modern Egypt, where individual protest through the body may be met with institutional silence and indifference. In doing so, she writes one of the noblest chapters of feminist and civil resistance in the contemporary Arab world.
Worldcrunch 🗞 Extra!
Know More • Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a prominent Egyptian-British activist, has been imprisoned since 2019 on charges of spreading false news, stemming from a Facebook post, as reported by BBC Arabia. Despite completing his five-year sentence in September 2024, Egyptian authorities have extended his detention, citing that his pre-trial detention does not count toward his sentence. In protest, Abd El-Fattah initiated a hunger strike in April 2022, which he intensified during the COP27 summit in November 2022 by refusing water, aiming to draw international attention to his plight. His actions prompted global concern, with leaders including then-UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledging to advocate for his release. On Nov. 15, 2022, Abd El-Fattah ended his hunger strike, informing his family through a letter, although he remained incarcerated.
The inclusion of Abd El-Fattah’s case during COP27 sparked controversy, as reported by Al-Youm Al-Sabee’s Ibrahim Hassan. Egyptian media personality Youssef El Husseiny criticized the focus on his situation, arguing that it detracted from the summit’s environmental agenda. He contended that the conference should not be a platform for political issues unrelated to climate change. Nevertheless, human rights organizations and international figures continued to highlight Abd El-Fattah’s case, emphasizing the importance of addressing human rights concerns alongside global environmental discussions. — Hagar Farouk (read more about the Worldcrunch method here).
A symbol for all prisoners
More than eight months having passed since Abd El-Fattah’s scheduled release. Yet he remains in his cell in a clear violation of Egyptian law, which clearly states that prison terms begin from the date of arrest, and that pretrial detention must be deducted from the total sentence — a fact the state ignores. Authorities have stated that Abd El-Fattah’s release date is Jan. 3, 2027, or five years from the sentencing date.
This interpretation is an arbitrary reading of the law, contradicting basic human rights and transforming pretrial detention from a precautionary measure into an undeclared additional sentence. Abd El-Fattah is thus denied not only his freedom but also his legal right to justice.
He is a mirror of forgotten prisoners and of an entire system in need of reform.
What applies to Abd El-Fattah regarding illegal pretrial detention applies to thousands of other political prisoners in Egypt, some of whom attempt suicide to escape an indefinite fate with no charges or release.`In Badr 3 Prison alone, 55 suicide attempts were documented within just 10 days in 2023, according to leaked letters.
Extended solitary confinement includes medical neglect, visitation bans, psychological and physical abuse, and the use of detention and investigations as long-term punitive tools without clear charges or fair trials.
In addition, Abd El-Fattah was tortured during his detention, according to reports by international human rights organizations. In October 2019, Amnesty International reported that after his arrest, Abd El-Fattah was transferred to the high-security Tora 2 Prison, where he was blindfolded, stripped, beaten, kicked, threatened and verbally abused by prison guards. He is a mirror of forgotten prisoners and of an entire system in need of reform.
Preemptive punishment
Political repression often doesn’t begin as a fully formed system, but as a tool of vengeance wielded by rulers against dissenters who threaten their legitimacy. Initially, it targets loud voices and symbols of opposition. It soon becomes a deeply entrenched structure that silences not only dissenters but also the indifferent, ultimately demanding conformity from all.
In Abd El-Fattah’s case, the layers of repression are clear — from his initial arrest to today. Since the 2011 revolution, the state has treated him not just as an opponent but as a symbol of a generation demanding change. That’s the first layer: direct revenge through imprisonment and trials.
Over time, repression deepened into a systematic structure. The state no longer targets Abd El-Fattah for his actions but for what he symbolizes. Even after his sentence ended, his detention continued as a preemptive punishment — not for what he did, but for what he might do. Repression, in his case, became a retaliatory act against the very idea of resistance.
What is the value of our lives if they are not protected by law in our country?
Pursuing Abd El-Fattah becomes a veiled (and at times overt) threat to anyone who still dares to demand their rights. Silence alone is no longer enough. He was not imprisoned just for writing, but because he is a symbol of an unsettling idea: that freedom is not granted but seized. Repression, in his case, became a pathological defense mechanism against a future he embodies.
Soueif — with her withering body now facing death — is a stark testimony to the struggle between two forces in Egypt: one with the law, court rulings and unlawful pretrial detention around the necks of dissidents; the other with only words and hunger strikes.
This silent testimony reveals the layers of repression endured by Abd El-Fattah, his sister and his father — now distilled into a battle of empty stomachs: Soueif protesting from the outside, Abd El-Fattah from within. Mother and son wager their lives on one last urgent question: What is the value of our lives if they are not protected by law in our country?
After dozens of calls for the release of Abd El-Fattah by presidential pardon, the answer to that question now lies now in Sisi’s hands.
