The body as a battleground for struggle: Laila Soueif and her final protest

[Editor's note: In the same week this story was published, Laila Soueif’s hunger strike reached a critical turning point. After over 160 days without food, she was hospitalized last week and declared at “high death risk,” forcing her to scale back to a partial hunger strike on Friday, March 7th. Her son, Alaa Abd El-Fattah is still in detention without clear charges. He began refusing food since March 1st when he heard his mother was hospitalized, thus starting his own hunger strike from behind bars.]

In a room where time has lost its meaning, Laila Soueif lies on a hospital bed, her body stretched out in apparent surrender. But behind this stillness, there is a silent resistance defying collapse. Her face, which came to be known for its strength and resilience, is now pale, as if the long days of hunger strike have drained every last bit of energy. Her arms lay limp at her sides, bearing only the traces of prolonged starvation, while her sunken eyes stare upward at an invisible point, searching for something lost—for the shadow of her son, Alaa Abd El-Fattah; for proof that his absence is not the only truth that remains.

When authorities and regimes ignore you, when every plea is reduced to deaf bureaucratic procedures, the body itself becomes a means of protest. Hunger becomes the final language one can speak in front of a world that insists on your silence.

For more than five months, food has not been an option for her. It was not a decision to surrender, but an attempt to force the world to pay attention. When authorities and regimes ignore you, when every plea is reduced to deaf bureaucratic procedures, the body itself becomes a means of protest. Hunger becomes the final language one can speak in front of a world that insists on your silence.

But this was nothing new for Laila. She had spent her life moving between universities, demonstrations, and prisons, carrying a book in one hand and a slogan in the other—between a mathematical mind that loved logic and a political heart that knew logic alone was never enough. In mathematics, there is always a correct answer, an equation that leads to a solution. But in Egyptian politics, equations are rewritten however the authorities see fit, and outcomes are determined not by logic, but by power. When laws fail to serve the regime, it uses repression to take care of the rest.

Detention as a tool of oppression: When prison becomes an idea

Laila was a young woman who believed that knowledge was a position to take up, and not a neutral one. She was not just an academic observing from a distance but part of a leftist movement that saw science and thought as tools for change, not just spaces for abstract debate. Naturally, this conviction placed her in direct confrontation with authority, but perhaps she never imagined that this battle would never end—that it would become her eternal struggle, not only for her beliefs but for her children as well.

In regimes built on repression, dissidents quickly learn that their bodies are their last resort and refuge of resistance. When every other outlet is blocked, the body itself becomes a tool of protest, an open battlefield that the authorities cannot shut down or suppress.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah was not just another name on the list of political prisoners; he embodied the dilemma of a state that fears words more than it fears armed threats. Since 2011, he has been shuffled from one prison to another. The charges may change, but the crime remains the same: speaking out. In a system where silence is considered the key to stability, simply having a voice—even if only through words—is seen as stepping out of line, an unforgivable act of defiance.

When Alaa finished his latest prison sentence in September 2024, he was supposed to be released—but not everyone who serves time in Egypt gets to leave. This time, there was no new trial, no additional charge—just a vague decision to keep him detained without explanation. Bureaucracy, which is supposed to be an administrative mechanism, had turned into a tool of punishment. There were no official documents or paperwork proving his continued imprisonment, no clear legal steps—just a simple reality: Alaa was not getting out.

And when the state manipulated the law, Laila Soueif decided to play by her own rules. If they had taken away her son’s freedom, she would take from herself the one thing she fully controlled: her own body.

Soueif’s gamble was never on the regime’s mercy or empathy, but on confronting it with the truth of its actions—on pushing it to a moment where it could no longer hide behind legal rhetoric, on forcing it, even in silence, to acknowledge that what was happening was not the application of the law, but a calculated act of political revenge.

A hunger strike: When the body becomes an act of protest

When Laila decided to stop eating, it was neither a symbolic act nor an attempt to draw attention. She was not seeking to stir emotions or plead for human compassion from a regime indifferent to personal tragedies. She knew that the same system that had ignored the pleas of thousands of prisoners and their families for over a decade would not be easily moved by the sight of a mother growing weaker with each passing day without food. But her bet was never on the regime’s mercy or empathy, but on confronting it with the truth of its actions. It was on pushing it to a moment where it could no longer hide behind legal rhetoric, on forcing it, even in silence, to acknowledge that what was happening was not the application of the law, but a calculated act of political revenge.

In regimes built on repression, dissidents quickly learn that their bodies are their last resort and refuge of resistance. When every other outlet is blocked—no marches, no statements, no platforms—the body itself becomes a tool of protest, an open battlefield that the authorities cannot shut down or suppress with conventional laws. A hunger strike is not just a refusal to eat; it is a rejection of the very logic of power—of a system that reduces prisoners to numbers, sees detainees as bargaining chips, and dismisses grieving mothers as mere noise to be silenced and ignored until it fades away.

But Laila is not a prisoner, and that is what makes her fight different. The regime knows how to silence those inside prison cells, but it does not know how to deal with a mother standing in the open, using her body as a weapon, depriving the authorities of the luxury of making her disappear behind bars.

The real question now is not how long can Laila Soueif continue her hunger strike, but how long the regime can continue ignoring it. Will it remain silent while the health of a mother fighting for her son steadily deteriorates?

The fear of symbols

The current regime does not fear organized opposition as much as it fears individuals who become symbols. And this is precisely why Laila is such a problem. She is not fighting her battle in her name alone—she carries with her the voices of countless mothers and fathers who have lost their children in the labyrinth of repression and refuses to accept silence as the only option available to them.

In Egypt, it is not mass gatherings that threaten the authorities—they can be dispersed by force, suppressed through laws, or discredited by the media. But personal stories, the ones that quietly seep into public consciousness, are what truly cause concern. They are not easily forgotten, nor can they be erased with the passing of a new law. Whether she realizes it or not, Soueif is redefining political protest in Egypt—not through slogans or crowds, but with her frail body, the weakest tool of resistance yet the most powerful in its impact.

The pressing question now is not how long can Laila continue her hunger strike, but how long the regime can continue ignoring it. Can it remain silent while the health of a mother fighting for her son steadily deteriorates? Or will silence, as has happened many times before, be part of a long-term strategy—one designed to exhaust her until she completely collapses?

The current regime does not fear organized opposition as much as it fears individuals who become symbols. And this is precisely why Soueif is such a problem. She is not fighting her battle in her name alone—she carries with her the voices of countless mothers and fathers who have lost their children in the labyrinth of repression.

Hunger strikes do not always achieve their demands or lead to victory. Sometimes, they end in death. Other times, they end in forced medical intervention that restores the body’s life but not its dignity. And in some cases, the media spotlight fades, turning the ordeal into just another entry in the archive of tragedies that changed nothing. But even if success or victory does not come directly, what Laila has done has left an indelible mark. She has forced the regime to take a position—even if that position is silence—and ensured that Alaa AbdelFattah remains a case that cannot be easily closed.

Yet a larger question looms beyond this moment: how long can any regime rule by fear alone? History says it cannot, while the present says it can—at least for longer than many expect. And with each passing day, Laila continues her strike, her exhausted body standing as a testament to a battle that is no longer just about her son, but about something much greater: Can the truth, even when carried by a frail body, prevail against oppression?

* The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Raseef22 English.