LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Having lost a third of her body weight during a 134-day hunger strike, a “weak” Laila Soueif on Monday urged UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to secure her son’s release from an Egyptian jail, warning “I don’t have time”.

Soueif, 68, has lived on coffee, tea and rehydration sachets since September 29, 2024, the date that marked five years of imprisonment, when pre-trial detention is taken into account, for her UK-Egyptian son Alaa Abdel Fattah.

Fattah, a pro-democracy and rights campaigner, was arrested by Egyptian authorities in September 2019 and handed a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” in a Facebook post on torture in Egypt’s prisons.

His mother has braved the biting UK winter to demonstrate outside Starmer’s Downing Street office each working day since her son’s supposed release date.

She met in November with foreign minister David Lammy, who travelled to Cairo last month to press for her son’s release.

But Soueif has been demanding a meeting with Starmer, who she says could be doing more to help.

“I wrote to him asking for a meeting,” Soueif told AFP in her south London home.

“I got a response that didn’t mention a meeting and he repeated that this was his top priority, but he also said that this would take time,” she said.

“I don’t have time.”

– ‘Very worried’ –
Soueif has lost 28 kilogrammes (61 pounds) since starting the hunger strike, leaving her “weak and slow”.

She was admitted to a London hospital last week, where doctors said she had low blood pressure as well as low levels of blood sugar and potassium.

Soueif last saw her 43-year-old son, a key figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak, on January 7 at the Cairo jail where he is being held.

“He wants to go on hunger strike too, he’s finding it very hard that I’m doing this and… he’s just sitting in his jail cell marking time,” she said.

“He was glad to see me still on my feet. Of course he’s very worried.”

But Soueif, herself an activist, is not for turning.

“He knows me better than that, all my children are very worried,” she said.

“They know me well enough to know that the best thing to do is just support me.”

Her declining health means that Soueif is unlikely to currently make the five-hour flight to Cairo.

“I’m staying here until this is resolved one way or another,” she said.

“I’m going on with my hunger strike until either Alaa is released or I collapse completely, and maybe even die.”

“Every time I visit him I’m thinking this could be the last one. I guess he’s thinking that too.”

– ‘Fighting spirit’ –
Soueif believes that Starmer is the only person who can intervene by putting pressure on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“I do not understand why Mr Starmer is failing to phone or talk directly to Mr Sisi,” she told reporters Monday at a Downing Street protest.

“In Egypt things go from top to bottom. Unless Mr Sisi gives the green light, nothing is going to happen.”

Since taking office in 2014, Sisi’s government has faced criticism over a sweeping crackdown on dissent that has targeted activists, journalists and opposition figures

If Soueif were to die, “I’m sure it would look badly on every member of the British government and every member of the Egyptian government,” she told AFP.

She hopes that US President Donald Trump’s recent provocative comments on Middle East security may draw the UK and Egypt closer together, and help her son’s cause.

If he were to be released, Soueif — who still serves as a mathematics professor at a Cairo university — says her son would live a quiet life in the UK, looking after his autistic son Khaled, 13.

When asked if her son had inherited his rebellious streak from her, London-born Soueif replied “Oh yes!”

“My whole family has enough fighting spirit for anything in the long run,” she said.