UK – The Mirror, February 10, 2025
Laila Soueif, mother of imprisoned British-Egyptian citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has criticised Keir Starmer for not meeting her and said she will not end her hunger strike until Alaa is free.
A distraught mum says she has lost a third of her body weight in a desperate effort to get her son freed.
Laila Soueif, mother of wrongly imprisoned British-Egyptian citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has criticised Keir Starmer for not meeting her as her health deteriorates. Laila, 68, has been on hunger strike since September and has now lost nearly four-and-a-half stone.
Pro-democracy activist Aala, 44, is being held in Egypt, even though he has served his full sentence and should have been released last year. He was arrested in September 2019 and handed a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” after posting a Facebook post on torture in Egypt’s prisons.
Laila has vowed to protest outside Downing Street every day until she is too weak to do so, calling on Mr Starmer to intervene. She said: “I’ve been sitting in the cold outside his house pleading with him to act. The least he could do is invite me inside to discuss my son.”
Last week she was taken to hospital where doctors voiced their alarm about her low blood sugar level and low potassium. Laila, who has consumed nothing but herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts since September 29, says she will not eat or consume calories until her son is freed. His family, including his young son, live in Brighton.
