![Laila Soueif, mother of activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah who is imprisoned in Egypt, holds a picture of herself and her son while continuing her hunger strike on May 28, 2025 outside Downing Street in London, England. [Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/GettyImages-2217456709-2-1.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
The mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been admitted to hospital after 242 days of hunger strike in protest at her son’s imprisonment in Egypt, her family announced yesterday.
Laila Soueif, 69, began her hunger strike on 29 September 2024 – the day her son was expected to be released after completing a five-year prison sentence.
On Monday, she was taken to hospital in London after her blood sugar levels dropped sharply, a statement released by her campaign said. This is the second time she has been hospitalised since February. Her family says she has lost more than 40 per cent of her body weight since September.
Alaa Abdel Fattah, 43, rose to prominence in the Arab Spring uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak and became a symbol of suffering during the repression that followed.
The 2011 revolution gave hope to a generation of activists in Egypt and beyond, but Alaa quickly fell foul of successive security crackdowns. He has spent much of the decade since behind bars.
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He was imprisoned for five years in 2014, the year incumbent Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah Al-Sisi began heading the country, for protesting without permission. Released on probation in 2019, he was reunited with his young son, but was required to sleep each night at a police station.
The partial reprieve was cut short in September 2019, when he was detained, once more, amid a wave of arrests that followed rare protests against Al-Sisi. In December 2021, Alaa was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading fake news, for sharing a social media post about the death of a prisoner. The accusation is commonly levelled at critics of the government and activists who post on social media.
On Wednesday, a panel of United Nations experts concluded that his detention is unlawful, and called for his immediate release.
Abdel Fattah began a hunger strike on 1 March after learning that his mother had been hospitalised. His strike is ongoing, according to his support campaign.
Human rights groups say tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience have been detained under the Sisi regime, often without due process, and that they have suffered a range of abuses, including torture while in jail.
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