Hunger-striker's plea to PM: help free my son from Cairo prison

A British-Egyptian professor who has been on hunger strike for eight months, demanding the British government do more to release her son from jail in Cairo, is fighting for her life after being admitted to hospital.

- Ruth Michaelson

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a key player in the 2011 Egyptian uprising, has spent more than five years in a prison outside Cairo for sharing a social media post about torture. His mother, Laila Soueif, has been campaigning since then to urge the British government to put pressure on its Egyptian counterpart.

Since Abd el-Fattah became a British citizen while incarcerated more than three years ago, successive British governments have made promises to his family to do more to free him, with little visible success. Soueif, who is 69, began her hunger strike in September last year in a final, desperate attempt to force their hand.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, met Soueif three months ago and offered his “personal commitment” to resolving her son's case, and has since raised it with Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.