An Egyptian pro-democracy advocate who has been in prison in Egypt on and off for most of the last decade marked his 100th day on hunger strike on Sunday to protest alleged violations against him. Alaa Abdel Fattah, a leader in the 2011 revolution that led to the deposing of Hosni Mubarak, was sentenced in December – after spending nearly three years in pre-trial detention – to five years in prison, on charges of “spreading false news undermining national security.” Last year, Abdel-Fattah’s family and his Egyptian lawyers accused prison authorities in Cairo’s Tora Prison of torturing him and denying him basic legal rights.
Abdel Fattah’s supporters are calling on Washington to help secure his release, according to a statement from his support committee. He has been taking “100 calories a day in the form of a spoon of honey and a drop of milk in tea,” according to the committee. Abdel-Fattah was granted British citizenship in April while in prison through his mother, Laila Soueif, a math professor at Cairo University who was born in London.