UK – The Times, October 27, 2024
It’s been 28 days since Laila Soueif last ate and 22 since she last felt hungry. Yet she remains defiant, running on the power of a mother’s love in the hope that she can draw the world’s gaze to the unjust imprisonment of her son, the British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, as he languishes in an Egyptian jail.
“I don’t feel too bad. When you go on hunger strike there are five or six days when you’re hungry and tired and then the body adapts and starts burning fats. You can last for quite a bit of time on your body fat, particularly if you’re overweight, which I am,” Soueif, 68, a white-haired mathematics professor, said.
