London mum moves to partial hunger strike over jailed son
Leila Soueif's son has been detained in Egypt since September 2019.
A London mum has agreed to go onto a partial hunger strike, over her son being imprisoned in Egypt.
Laila Soueif told her doctors "there have been developments that have given me hope, and I want to switch to a partial hunger strike of 300 calories, consumed as liquids and not solid food”.
Medical staff have explained that there will still be a limit to how much her body can hold out due to the continuation of her strike on what will still be a severely diminished calorie intake.
The recommendation has been that she takes this nutritional supplement which contains only 300 calories. They are keeping her under observation to see how her body responds to it. If it adapts well and she stabilises, she will be discharged and will continue to take one of these per day.
A family spokesperson said: "When Laila started her hunger strike, she didn’t have much hope that Alaa would be released in her lifetime. Now she is cautiously optimistic.
She is prepared, and has told us be prepared, that she could return to a full hunger strike at any moment should she feel that things are not moving forward for Alaa’s release so that he can be reunited with his son Khaled in Brighton."
43-year-old British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, has been detained in Egypt since September 29 2019 and in December 2021 was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spreading false news.
The spokesperson added "The biggest thanks to all those supporting and fighting to help free Alaa - it is this growing momentum that has made Laila believe that she may yet be able to live and see her son free."
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