The blood sugar level of Laila Soueif, mother of wrongfully imprisoned British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has today (Monday 16th June) plummeted to 0.9 mmol/L in St Thomas’ Hospital in London.

Last week Laila had agreed to glucose treatment in order to reduce the risk of her dying while her daughter Sanaa traveled to Egypt to visit Alaa in prison. Sanaa returned to London on Thursday (June 12th) and Laila stopped the glucose treatment. On Friday (June 13th) Laila’s blood sugar levels began dropping again to dangerous levels - down to 2.7 mmol/L by Friday evening and 1.8 mmol/L by Saturday (14th June) morning.

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Laila Soueif, mother of wrongfully imprisoned British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has today (Thursday 12th June) stopped taking a glucose drip at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, after her daughter Sanaa Seif returned to the UK from visiting Alaa in prison in Egypt.

Laila had agreed to take the glucose treatment in order to allow time for Sanaa to travel to Egypt to see Alaa, and reduce the risk of her dying while she was away. She is today (Thursday 12th June) on Day 256 of her hunger strike in protest at Alaa’s continued imprisonment. The 69-year-old has not eaten food since September 29th 2024, the date Alaa was supposed to be released from prison, over 8 months ago.

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Sanaa Seif has flown to Egypt to visit her brother Alaa Abd el-Fattah in prison today (Friday June 6th), in a visit allowed for the Eid holiday in Egypt. Laila Soueif has accepted a glucose drip to allow time for Sanaa to travel to Egypt to visit Alaa, and then return to London to be with her mother in hospital.

Before flying to Egypt, Sanaa Seif said: “I told my mother I couldn’t leave to see Alaa if I thought she was going to die while I was gone. So she has agreed to accept a dose of glucose to give me time to get to Egypt and back.”

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The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Emily Thornberry MP, has called on the government to “do more and apply maximum pressure on Egypt” to secure the release of wrongfully imprisoned British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah and save the life of his hunger-striking mother Laila Soueif.

In a statement on her X account, Emily Thornberry said: “We simply cannot allow a mother to starve herself to death to fight for her son’s freedom. Alaa should be home with his family. The UK Government must do more and apply maximum pressure on Egypt to secure his release.”

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Cross-party UK Parliamentarians yesterday (Tuesday 3rd June) joined the family of British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah at a press conference outside St Thomas’ Hospital, where his hunger striking mother Laila Soueif is hospitalised, with several calling on the government to impose sanctions on Egypt over Alaa’s continued imprisonment in the country.

This came as a banner was dropped off Westminster Bridge, directed at Foreign Secretary David Lammy, reading ‘Lammy: Free Alaa Now!’; celebrities including Dame Judi Dench, Carey Mulligan, Brian Cox and Mark Ruffalo signed a letter calling on the Prime Minister to do more to secure Alaa’s release; and vigils for Laila and Alaa continued each night outside St Thomas’ Hospital, and around the world.

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Speaking to LBC’s Sunday with Lewis Goodall programme from St Thomas’ Hospital in London, Laila Soueif, mother of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has addressed Prime Minister Keir Starmer directly, saying: “Mr Starmer, you have told me that you are committed to doing everything to secure Alaa’s release, but Alaa is still in prison so obviously what you are doing is not the best that can be done.”

Laila’s blood sugar level again dropped to 0.6 mmol/L overnight, and her ketone levels, measuring blood acidity, are too high for hospital tests to detect, indicating they are above 7 mmol/L. Today (Sunday 1st June) is Day 245 of her hunger strike in protest at her British-Egyptian son’s wrongful imprisonment in Egypt.

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The blood sugar level of Laila Soueif, mother of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, dropped below 0.6 mmol/L last night, too low to be detected by hospital tests. At the same time her ketones level, measuring blood acidity, rose above 7 mmol/L, indicating levels of blood acidity also too high to be detected by medical tests.

In a letter from a consultant doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, Laila Soueif was yesterday (Saturday 31st May) warned that a ‘slight further reduction’ in her blood sugar levels could lead to ‘rapid loss of consciousness’ and her ‘sudden death’.

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Description goLaila Soueif, mother of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, was hospitalised yesterday evening at St Thomas’ Hospital in central London (Thursday 29th May) on Day 242 of her hunger strike in protest at her British-Egyptian son’s wrongful imprisonment in Egypt. Today (Friday 30th May) is her 243rd day without food.

Laila’s blood sugar levels dropped to a shocking new low of 1.1 mmol/L overnight, at which point she was given glucagon treatment, a hormone that induces the liver to break down stored fat to obtain glucose. Laila is still refusing glucose treatment as part of her hunger strike; the glucagon treatment contains no calories or glucose. But the glucagon treatment is dangerous because it can lead to blood acidity, which could ultimately cause cardiac arrest.

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Former British Ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, and senior UK parliamentarians have called on the British government to revise the official travel advice for tourists travelling to Egypt, in light of the continued unlawful detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah. 

In a letter published today (Thursday 29th May) inThe Times, John Casson, alongside Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Sir John Whittingdale, Lord Peter Hain, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Calum Miller, campaigner Richard Ratcliffe, and members of the APPG on Arbitrary Detention and Hostage Affairs, urge the government to ‘caution against travel to Egypt’ in ‘official travel advice’.

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In a landmark decision, the United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), a panel of independent human rights experts that investigate cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, has found that British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah is arbitrarily detained in Egypt and that Egyptian authorities therefore have an obligation to release him immediately under international law.

In a legal opinion shared with lawyers representing Alaa Abd el-Fattah, UNWGAD “requests the Government of Egypt to take the steps necessary to remedy the situation of Mr. Abd el-Fattah without delay” and says “the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Abd el-Fattah immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.”

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Laila Soueif, mother of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has been given one dose of life-saving glucose drip at St Thomas’ Hospital. She started the drip yesterday (Thursday 27th February) afternoon, and the dose was given to her over the course of 12 hours due to the dangers of the intervention at this stage in her hunger strike.

Laila has agreed at the request of her daughters, Sanaa and Mona Seif, to go through this procedure once in an effort to extend her life. She is continuing her hunger strike in protest at her son’s wrongful imprisonment in Egypt, today (Friday 28th February) on day 152, and continues not to eat or consume calories beyond this intervention.

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A consultant doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital in London has written a letter [FULL TEXT BELOW] stating that Laila Soueif, mother of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, is at ‘high risk of sudden death’ and that there is now ‘immediate risk to life’ due to her hunger strike. Last night her blood sugar level dropped to a new low of 1.5 mmol/L.

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An NHS doctor has detailed the impacts of Laila Soueif’s hunger strike in a letter, saying that fluid that she is starting to accumulate in her legs may be the result of a ‘new underactive thyroid gland’ or that ‘she is starting to develop heart failure’.

Laila’s GP described the risk of heart failure as ‘very serious’ and wrote in her letter ‘As a 68 year old woman, she has lost 21kg and perhaps more, this is a huge amount and dangerous’.

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“Mr Lammy should bring Alaa back with him on the plane and reunite him with his son. I have not eaten or taken any calories for 115 days, and I am tired. I am tired of being on hunger strike, and I am tired of sitting outside Downing Street waiting to die. I don’t know how much time I have left, and I desperately want to see my son a free man. 

“I believe that the Foreign Secretary should be able to secure Alaa’s release on this visit and bring my son back to his family in the UK. Please Mr Lammy, bring Alaa back with you. I don’t know if direct negotiations are happening, but we’ve been assured publicly and privately that Alaa is the “number one issue” for the government. So now I can only wait.”

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On Monday Laila will be joined on her hunger strike and her daily visit to Downing Street, by the Australian journalist Peter Greste. Peter was imprisoned in Egypt for one year for his work with Al Jazeera English, and spent much of that year locked up with Alaa.

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Laila Soueif, mother of British-Egyptian citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah, is today (Monday 13th January) starting daily visits to Downing Street, to remind Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ‘pick up the phone’ to President Sisi of Egypt in order to secure the release of her son from prison.

Today is day 106 of her hunger strike…

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Laila Soueif, the mother of British-Egyptian citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has started a hunger strike in Cairo, in protest at her son’s continued imprisonment in Egypt after the end of his 5 year prison sentence. She does not plan to eat until he is released.

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The sisters of Alaa Abd el-Fattah have criticised David Lammy for failing to meet their family since becoming Foreign Secretary, saying that he ‘made promises to us in opposition, but now in government he won’t even meet us’, at a press conference in London.

Sanaa and Mona Seif were joined by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe at the briefing, in the run up to Sunday 29th September, which will mark 5 years since Alaa Abd el-Fattah was arrested and detained in Egypt.

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Four months have passed since the historic events of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.  Back in November, the name Alaa Abd el-Fattah was on everybody’s lips, with world leaders Rishi Sunak, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the White House’s Jake Sullivan all publicly advocating for his safety and release.  “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated” - a reference to the title of Alaa’s book - became the rallying cry of the conference, as hundreds of members of international civil society staged a protest - a sight unseen in Egypt since the military coup of 2013. 

But now, four months on, there has been no progress on the release of Alaa and the number of political prisoners in Egypt continues to grow.  

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A live-updated rolling press release was maintained through the duration of COP27, which was held in Egypt in 2023.

Alaa had been on a partial hunger strike for 200+ days in the build-up and went on water strike as the conference began.

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Support continues to grow in both houses, across parties

Alaa will return to zero calorie strike on November 1st

His sister, Sanaa, maintaining sit-in outside FCDO in London

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Today, for the second day in a row, Alaa’s mother – Professor Laila Soueif – was told that Alaa is “refusing to come out” for his visit and had no laundry or finished books or letters to send out.

This is highly unusual and a cause for severe alarm. 

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●  21 CSOs urge German leaders to press Egyptian president to “re-open civic space.”

●  Growing international unease at Egypt’s hosting of COP27.

●  Avaaz action scheduled for 11am Monday.

●  Alaa’s sister, Sanaa Seif, now in Berlin and available for interview.

●  Naomi Klein: “climate justice movement will not allow summit to greenwash torment of our fellow activists.”

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Sameh Shoukry, the Foreign Minister of Egypt, will be arriving in London for talks with the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, on either Sunday or Monday.

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October 10, 3:45am 

Last night Alaa was able to inform his lawyers, and put it officially on record, that he has been beaten, threatened and robbed in prison. 

Alaa was beaten on being arrested, on arrival in prison and has been repeatedly threatened since. He was told if he spoke it would become worse. 

Alaa filed an official complaint and his family are broadcasting the news.

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