A strong article in the Times.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah was chronicling a peaceful protest from the sidelines of Tahrir Square when he saw his mother, Laila Soueif, being violently attacked by a group of agents provocateurs.

He sprang to her aid, shepherding her to safety from men who had arrived by the busload to provoke demonstrators speaking out against President Mubarak’s constitutional reforms into violence.

They were among the lucky ones. The men went on to sexually assault female protesters en masse as police watched on a day remembered as “Black Wednesday”.

“That’s the day he became a political activist. He stopped standing aside with the press and he joined the demonstrations,” Soueif said last year. “He was more interested in coding, blogging and citizen journalism, but Egypt eventually forces you to get involved.”

Twenty years on from the 2005 protest, Abd El-Fattah, 43, a father of one, has become known as Egypt’s most prominent political prisoner and a figure remembered for taking a key role in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution, where he made the case for a democratic and liberal Egypt.

Read the full piece here: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/dont-let-me-die-in-vain-mother-on-hunger-strike-for-jailed-son-6sm0q25p7