Egyptian-British political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has begun a partial hunger strike from his prison cell in Wadi El-Natrun, adding no more than 200 calories to his daily intake, his sister said in a Facebook post.
Sanaa Seif wrote Saturday that she visited her brother behind glass this week and found him noticeably frail. “He’s very thin,” she said. “But when he heard our mother moved to a partial strike of 600 calories, he was relieved and said he’d start adding honey and skimmed milk to his tea. He won’t exceed 200 calories.”
Abdel Fattah, jailed since September 2019, launched his hunger strike on March 1 after learning of the deteriorating health of his mother, academic Laila Soueif, who had herself stopped eating to demand his release.
Soueif began a full hunger strike last September, after Abdel Fattah’s five-year sentence should have ended on Sept. 28. She switched to a partial strike in March due to health complications, including hospitalization in London in February, but returned to a full strike in May. On June 27, she resumed a partial strike following appeals from supporters.
Prominent human rights lawyer Khaled Ali previously urged Soueif to reconsider. In a public post, he praised her determination but asked her to “give us more time to keep fighting for Alaa's freedom.”
Abdel Fattah was convicted in 2021 by an emergency court for “spreading false news, misusing social media, and joining a terrorist group,” after two years in pretrial detention. Rights groups say his continued detention violates Egyptian law, which mandates calculating time served from the date of arrest—Sept. 28, 2019—not the military ratification date of Jan. 3, 2022.
Under Egyptian criminal procedure code Article 482, sentences should be reduced by the time spent in pretrial detention.
On Thursday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised Abdel Fattah’s case with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during a phone call. Downing Street said Starmer demanded Abdel Fattah’s release, noting he has British citizenship and has already served his sentence. Egypt’s official readout omitted the topic, focusing on bilateral ties and the war in Gaza.
This marks at least the third time Egypt’s presidency has excluded UK appeals from official statements. Abdel Fattah, a symbol of Egypt’s 2011 uprising, gained British citizenship in 2021 through his London-born mother.
