Laila Soueif has gone without eating for over three weeks and has passed the point of feeling hunger. In London to advocate for the release of her British-Egyptian son, Alaa Abdel Fattah, the 68-year-old math professor remains resolute, stating that she doesn’t feel unwell at all. She began her hunger strike the day after her son’s supposed release from a five-year prison sentence, a sentence that his relatives and human rights organizations believe he should never have received in the first place. Alaa Abdel Fattah, a well-known political prisoner in Egypt, has been incarcerated for most of the past ten years. His mother’s hunger strike, sustained by water, rehydration salts, and sugarless tea or coffee, is a symbol of the increasing desperation felt by his family. “I will continue until Alaa is freed or I am hospitalized in critical condition,” she informs me. “His life has been on hold for 11 years. This cannot continue.”
