‘The idea was to crush his spirit’: family of jailed British-Egyptian man describe awful prison conditions

Laila Soueif, the mother of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, holds up a photograph of her son in November 2022. She is on hunger strike in a London hospital. Photograph: Hanaa Habib/Reuters

Family, friends and supporters of the jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah have spoken about the conditions of his long imprisonment as his mother, Laila Soueif, remains in a London hospital in declining health on a hunger strike to secure his release.

Amid a mounting campaign to put pressure on British ministers to intervene more forcefully on Abd el-Fattah’s behalf, supporters say his continued detention is part of a campaign of vengeance motivated by the personal animus of the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, towards him.