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.
Laila called on the PM to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi directly. She said: “I’ve been on hunger strike for over four months now, and have been visiting Downing Street every day for weeks, and Mr Starmer won’t even meet with me. He didn’t even mention my request to meet him in his recent letter to me.”
She continued: “I have urged the Prime Minister to intervene personally because I know the decision to free Alaa is in the hands of Mr Sisi, and I believe that Mr Starmer is the person who can persuade him to make that decision. I know Mr Starmer has written to Mr Sisi, but that was almost a month ago, and obviously it has not been enough. I do not understand why Mr Starmer is failing to phone or talk directly to Mr Sisi.
“In his letter to me, Mr Starmer said he believed progress is possible but warned, ‘it will take time’. How much time do they want? It has been 4 months since Alaa finished his sentence and I started my hunger strike. Any day now my body might collapse. It is already a miracle that we have had this much time.”
Mr Starmer wrote to the Egyptian President on December 26 and January 8, while National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, discussed Alaa with Egyptian authorities in Cairo on January 2.
On January 29 a group of 50 MPs and peers wrote to the PM, saying: “We are convinced that a direct conversation between you and President Sisi on Alaa’s case, in person or by telephone, is essential to achieve all our shared goal of Alaa being safely returned to his family in Brighton and an end to Laila Soueif’s hunger strike.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy described securing Alaa’s release at the “number one issue” for the Government on January 14 after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Cairo.
Australian journalist Peter Greste, a friend of Alaa who said the activist saved his life after he was thrown in a Cairo jail on a bogus terrorism charge, has also taken part in a 21-day hunger strike demanding his release.
The Mirror has contacted the Foreign Office for comment.