'Either my son comes out of Egyptian jail or I collapse'

Alaa Abdel Fattah’s grandmother reaches 80th day of hunger strike as she fights for the pro-democracy activist’s release

- TOM WATLING

In the Christmas cold outside the Foreign Office, 68-year-old grandmother Laila Soueif is starving herself. White lines are chalked on the pavement in front of her, one for each day she has been on hunger strike. After the 80th line, the words “Free Alaa” follow.

The strike is intended to put pressure on the British government to secure the release of her son, pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is in jail in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. He holds British citizenship – his 13-year-old son, Khaled, lives in Brighton – but consecutive British governments have failed to demand his release seriously.

Living only off sugarless green tea and rehydration salts, this is Ms Soueif’s most extreme call for help. She has already lost nearly 25kg. “Either my son comes out of prison or I collapse,” she says, wearing a coat now several sizes too big for her. “Once I am unconscious, it is not my business what happens.”

Mr Fattah has spent more than 10 years in prison over two stints, denied access to the British consulate by the Egyptian authorities, despite this being his right as a citizen. The second five-year sentence, for posting on Facebook about the death of an activist in police custody, expired on 29 September. But the date came and went.

Neither the Egyptian nor the British government acknowledged this end. Cairo had previously said the two years Mr Fattah has spent in pre-trial detention does not count towards his five-year sentence.

Nevertheless, the United Nations has described his sentences as unjust. David Lammy, the British foreign secretary, dismissed the imprisonment while in opposition as illegitimate and called for the Conservative government to do more to secure Mr Fattah’s release.