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Saturday, July 5, 2025
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Mother hospitalized 242 days into hunger strike

LONDON – The mother of Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been hospitalized 242 days into a hunger strike protesting her son’s continued imprisonment in Egypt, her family said.

Laila Soueif, 69, has been on hunger strike since Sept. 29, 2024, the day her son was expected to be released after completing a five-year prison sentence.

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She resumed a full hunger strike last week after two months of easing her protest to a partial hunger strike.

The academic and veteran activist was taken to a London hospital Monday with a “critically low” blood sugar level, her campaign group said in a brief statement.

It is her second hospitalization since February.

Soueif’s son Abdel Fattah was arrested in Sept. 2019 and sentenced to five years for “spreading false news” after sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.

A United Nations panel of experts on Wednesday determined his detention was arbitrary and illegal and called for his immediate release.

Abdel Fattah, who has spent most of the past decade behind bars, has been on hunger strike himself since March 1 after learning his mother was hospitalized with dangerously low blood sugar and blood pressure, and given a glucose drip.

Following her February hospitalization, Soueif decided to ease her strike after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had pressed for her son’s release in a call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

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