Laila Soueif, the prominent Egyptian academic and tireless mother of imprisoned activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, has ended her hunger strike after a grueling ten months.
Her decision, announced Monday by her daughter Sanaa Seif on Facebook, brings to a close a desperate act of protest aimed at securing her son's release, whose detention has extended beyond his legal sentence.
Laila began her strike in late September to protest the continued imprisonment of her son, activist and writer Alaa Abdel Fattah, despite the formal expiry of his five-year sentence, which has drawn widespread international condemnation, with many human rights organizations declaring his detention unlawful.
The 68-year-old mathematician initially went on a full hunger strike on the very day Alaa was due for release. She later transitioned to a partial strike in March, following what the family described as “promising signals” from Egyptian and international officials.
However, as local and international efforts yielded no progress, she resumed a full strike in May.
Last month, Laila once again shifted to a partial strike after repeated appeals from friends and family, including human rights lawyer Khaled Ali.
The extreme toll on her body recently prompted renewed, urgent appeals from family and friends, including human rights lawyer Khaled Ali, for her to cease her life-threatening protest.
Just two days ago, her other daughter, Mona Seif, made a direct appeal via a Facebook livestream, urging her mother to end the strike and calling on “everyone who has influence over Laila” to intervene. Mona had revealed her mother's conviction that “there's no way to get Alaa out except by dying,” highlighting the despair that fueled the extreme measure.
Breaking the news today, Sanaa wrote, “Mama has responded to your appeals and will end her hunger strike. She's in the hospital now, and we're working with doctors to ensure a medically safe refeeding process, which needs to be gradual.” She added that her mother had celebrated the decision the night before with two sugar cubes.
Meanwhile, Alaa remains on a partial strike and in prison, despite his sentence formally ending in September 2023.
Alaa began his own hunger strike on March 1 in response to news of his mother’s deteriorating condition. In late June, he started consuming small calories—up to 200 daily.
The prominent activist was arrested on Sept. 28, 2019, and sentenced to five years in December 2021 on charges of “spreading false news,” “misusing social media,” and “joining a terrorist organization,” after two years in pretrial detention.
Alaa remains in legal limbo due to the state’s refusal to credit more than two years of pretrial detention toward his prison sentence. Although arrested in September 2019, authorities count his term from January 2022, leaving him imprisoned despite having served his time, according to his lawyer Khaled Ali.
