In the summer of 2021, just days after I was released and while I was still euphoric from freedom after four years in detention, I met Laila Soueif at her home in the Dokki district of Cairo. It was a warm, modest, somewhat cluttered home, with old furniture, cracked wooden floors, a couch covered with a sheet and a special chair for the comfort of “Tante Laila,” as we affectionately call her. A home like many Egyptian homes, filled with the scent of calm.
Her daughter, Mona Seif, made me a hot drink, and we sat and talked. She comforted me with her gentle smile and soft voice, asking about my condition. We were joined by a friendly dog guarding her sister Sanaa Seif’s room in her absence. The dog barked at any unfamiliar visitor but soon warmed up to me and let me pet it.
Laila asked about my plans for after prison and whether I had any conditions needing medical care. She made sure I was okay mentally and urged me not to neglect my health. Then the conversation shifted to other detainees: “Do you know so-and-so? Did you see him inside? How is his health in prison? Is what we hear about that person true? Is he really collaborating with security and reporting on others? What do you think of this person? Do you need any help?”
Strangely, she didn’t mention her imprisoned son, the writer and political activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, even once during our meeting. She prioritized me and my story, then asked about others. That’s how Soueif always is — caring, inquiring after everyone, treating all the oppressed like her own children, offering support even when she herself needed it most.
The Egyptian authorities rearrested Abd el-Fattah on Sept. 28, 2019, after he had already served five years for the so-called “Shura Council Protest” on Nov. 26, 2013, when dozens of activists were detained for demonstrating against military trials. In December 2021, he was sentenced again — this time to five more years, accused of spreading false news for reposting a tweet about a detainee who died as a result of his torture in prison.
Abd el-Fattah was supposed to be released on Sept. 29, 2024, but the authorities circumvented the law by not counting his pretrial detention period, keeping him in prison. As a result, he has now spent over 10 years behind bars since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took office in July 2013.
In response, Soueif, who is now 69, began an open-ended hunger strike last September to protest her son’s ongoing imprisonment. After more than 250 days, her life is in danger. Her blood sugar has dropped to critical levels, she’s lost over 45% of her body weight and has become emaciated, her bones frighteningly protruding — yet she continues to refuse food. Her son joined her hunger strike from prison on March 1 and has continued for over 100 days.
On June 9, Soueif agreed to a limited glucose solution to keep her blood sugar steady, but she is still refusing to eat, according to her daughter Sanaa.
Alaa Al-Khayam, former leader of the Dostour Party, described her in an interview with New Lines as a “unique fighter.”
“I’ll never forget seeing her sitting on the ground outside prisons waiting for a word from Alaa,” he said. “She fights many battles and never breaks. Now, she faces her hardest, and perhaps final battle — to stir our conscience. Whatever happens, Laila and her family remain an enduring symbol of noble civil resistance.”
Egyptian security officials often respond to human rights organizations’ calls for the release of writers, journalists and political prisoners — or to protests over prison conditions — by saying that “Egypt’s arm cannot be bent.” The statement sums up the state’s logic: Repression and defiance are a point of pride. Any concession, even legal, is seen as a loss of state prestige.
This is exactly how the security services treat Abd el-Fattah: with a stubborn, unlawful insistence on keeping him in prison. Must Laila Soueif die just to prove that Egypt is a state that cannot be challenged and that its regime is untouchable?
If that happens, it would be despite the family’s intense efforts to secure Abd el-Fattah’s release through other means. “We’ve lost 11 years of our lives with Alaa in prison,” Mona said in an interview. “We tried every legal and diplomatic path. Don’t call it arm-twisting. That’s an insult.”
Having lost nearly half her body weight, Soueif’s vital signs are dangerously low. Some have urged her to put an end to the hunger strike, fearing for her life. Her close friend, Aida Seif el-Dawla, co-founder of the El Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, spoke of her anger when a journalist asked what she would say to convince Soueif to end the strike. “Laila’s decision wasn’t taken lightly — it came from integrity and determination,” she told the interviewer. “She’s not suicidal — suicide is about despair. Laila is striking out of hope. She believes Alaa can be freed. She deserves to live. Alaa deserves to be free.”
In the 2008 film “Hunger,” the longest scene depicts Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands explaining to Father Dominic Moran his reasons for going on hunger strike. “You want me to argue about the morality of what I’m about to do and whether it’s really suicide or not? For one, you’re calling it suicide. I call it murder,” he tells Moran. The film chronicles Sands’ death after 66 days without food — and the deaths of nine others who followed him.
Sands had a clear objective and a strategic plan: 75 men volunteered to strike in staggered intervals. He had learned from the failure of a previous strike: When seven men started together, and were weakened at the same pace, they couldn’t bear to let the weakest die. This time, they joined one by one, every two weeks, to sustain pressure and avoid mass death. Each man would carry on the strike until death, then be replaced by the next. “There’s no shortage of us, 75 men have put their names forward,” he says confidently in the film.
Moran tries to appeal to logic and guilt. He warns Sands that the British government sees them as terrorists and won’t care if they die. But Sands insists: “It’s in their hands. Our message is clear. They are seeing our determination.” Even in the worst case scenario, should they die, “There’ll be a new generation of men and women even more resilient, more determined.”
Parallels abound between Sands’ story in Northern Ireland and Soueif’s and Abd el-Fattah’s today in Egypt. In both, they’re labeled “terrorists,” and both regimes appear unmoved by their possible deaths. Some now question whether this hunger strike — potentially fatal — has any point. We watch Soueif waste away. However, it may not lead to Abd el-Fattah’s release.
Mona says that asking her mother to stop without offering an alternative is meaningless. “Hunger strikes have always been the last resort of the stripped — those who have nothing left but their bodies to resist. The real question is: What did the Egyptian authorities do to make a woman in her late 60s feel she had no choice but to resist like a desperate prisoner?”
Mahatma Gandhi once wrote that fasting was “the last resort instead of the sword.” Sometimes, nonviolence requires fasting as a moral protest against injustice when all other paths are blocked.
The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has written about “bare life,” in which people are stripped of rights and reduced to a merely biological existence, beyond the law but still under the control of the state. Through this lens, hunger strikes reject the reduction of people to mere biology. They transform a biological function into political resistance. The belief is that while the body deteriorates, the person striking regains ownership of it — fighting a system bent on domination.
Ahmed Samir Santawy, an Egyptian researcher sentenced to four years in prison in 2021 for “spreading false news,” went on hunger strike for 40 days in protest and was later released in 2022 via presidential pardon. Santawy explained to New Lines that when detainees lose faith in justice, the hunger strike becomes their final stand. “I had no hope left. The regime was crushing me. I was weak and helpless, but I had to resist.”
Prison doctors tried to dissuade him: “You’re killing yourself; no one wins with a hunger strike,” they told him. They cited the recent death of political prisoner and U.S. citizen Mostafa Kassem in 2020, who succumbed after a hunger strike. Kassem, who was diabetic, had pleaded for his release for years and renounced his Egyptian citizenship in hopes of freedom. When hope died, he turned to the only weapon he had left: his body.
“The authorities flaunt our deaths as proof they won’t bow to pressure,” Santawy said. “Their message is clear: There’s no room for negotiation. They don’t value the lives of detainees. They don’t care if Americans die, or Italians, or Brits.”
He concluded: “When a regime shuts every door, people are forced to gamble with their lives. They try to convince you resistance is pointless — but maybe the point is resistance itself. Even if you’re punching a wall that won’t break, at least you punch.”
In a different context, Amani Ibrahim, a Palestinian artist based in Canada, began a hunger strike on May 19 to raise funds for Gaza amid famine and food shortages. She’s raised over $230,000 so far, and vows to continue as long as her body holds out. For Amani, striking is an act of solidarity — even if authorities ignore it. “The least we can do is say no,” she said in an interview with New Lines.
Amani sees parallels between herself and Soueif in their shared refusal to accept state injustice. But she laments the lack of support from the Egyptian and Arab publics. “Laila is a mother. All mothers should stand with her in her fight for her child’s right to life and freedom.”
Seif el-Dawla put it best: “When has any act of resistance ever come with guarantees? Every act of resistance carries risk. Success is a possibility that fuels the struggle’s resolve.” She recalled Soueif once saying that if she backed down, she wouldn’t be able to live with dignity. “It’s her integrity, her truth.”
She added: “The Egyptian regime doesn’t see Laila as a grieving mother. It sees her as a challenge to its authority. And there is nothing the regime hates more than citizens who stand tall with dignity and resist injustice.”
There have been many solidarity campaigns for Abd el-Fattah and appeals for his release, and even some contact between Egyptian authorities and the British government. But Mona says she sees no signs of a resolution from the Egyptian side. The few times any communication happened, intermediaries were told that the authorities considered Abd el-Fattah’s case off-limits.
Seif el-Dawla confirmed this, explaining that when some mediators failed to reach the authorities with their appeals, they redirected their efforts toward Soueif, urging her to end her hunger strike out of concern for her life.
As for the British government, Mona acknowledges that some officials do care about Abd el-Fattah’s case, but the efforts made for his release are simply insufficient. “They don’t understand the terror we live with every day. They don’t understand how Laila’s body could collapse at any moment.”
When asked whether Soueif might end her strike, Mona replied: “The hunger strike was Laila’s personal decision. She has decided to continue until Alaa is released. But in moments of clarity, she has told us she might consider ending the strike if she senses a real, tangible step toward Alaa’s release. If we feel any genuine change in his situation, we could sit down with my mother and talk to her about reconsidering the strike.”
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