welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. to voice dissent in egypt of president abdel fattah al—sisi and yet still, egypt is regarded as a vital strategic of political prisoners have? laila soueiftmother, , , , and alaa's sister sa naa. laila is into the fifth month of a hunger strike in a desperate bid to win her son's freedom. is there any reason to be hopeful?

thank you for having us. oh, it is a pleasure laila, i am going to start with you. you are in the fifth month of a hunger strike, a hunger strike that is aimed to put pressure, to win the release of your son to have you. currently imprisoned in egypt. my first question has from the way i'm answering you. to be, how are you? 0k — it's a miracle that i'm still on my feet, but i'm very, very weak. and i'm slow, as you can see and i'm slow, as you can see from the way i'm answering you.

you have a glass of water in front of you. i know you're taking water. i believe you're taking some sugarless tea and coffee and some sort of rehydration drink. yeah, i take rehydration salts — the same kind you give to children when they have diarrhoea or something. but, of course, no food whatsoever. and you're in your fifth month, and i know you've lost an alarming amount of body weight. i mean, how long can this continue before your body simply gives up? nobody knows, actually, at the moment. i mean, i didn't expect it to continue this long. and the doctors i've spoken to say that we're in unchartered waters now. we can't even guess. sanaa, you're sitting with your mum. you are watching her go through this ordeal. and i know, of course, you care as deeply as she does about the freedom of alaa

in his prison in egypt. but before we get any further, what's it like for you having to experience this with your mother? it's really tough and... itry, like... she did tell me that she was thinking about this prior to starting it. so, like, i got a heads—up of, i think, a little bit more than a month. so i kind of tried to prepare myself to be supportive, because i also feel for her that i agree with her, that my brother might not ever be released unless there is a crisis. but the more i see her like that, the more i'm scared and i'm like, "no, let's go back." you're a deeply, profoundly activist family. laila, i know you and your husband, going back to the days of sadat and then mubarak,

were campaigners and activists for democracy, for freedom, for an end to human rights abuse in egypt. so you're familiar with the techniques of campaigning against the government in your country. but i just wonder whether there's a limit that you are now prepared to cross that you've never crossed before. yes, there is, because this government has crossed so many limits that were never crossed before. and the ultimate limit, of course, in a hunger strike is using your own body as a sort of...a weapon. and, you know, again, this is difficult to talk about, but you have to confront the possibility of death. i do, i confronted it before i even started this hunger strike. you see, many years ago, my husband was

imprisoned for five years. but at that time, we knew that five years meant five years. he came out of prison. he built a completely new life. so i know it's possible to build a new life after you come out of prison. but it's not possible if you're in prison indefinitely. and that's what's happening now in egypt. not just to alaa. i've mentioned this before. i'll say it again. i have a friend who is a university professor, professor essam hashish. he's been found innocent by all the courts since 2018. he is still in prison. i can't allow this to happen to my own son. let's talk more about alaa's situation.

they refused to count the two years of pre—trial detention, st; ! eeues�*e he; effi§i§i¥"”' does alaa right now know of your hunger strike, have been released. she informed him of it. so he knew about it. she can tell you his reaction.

several weeks ago. what was he able to tell you about his feelings he's going crazy. he's really scared that we will lose her. he is feeling triggered and retraumatised, because we lost our father while he was in prison, i was in prison. so he'sjust, like, waiting for that moment of, yeah, he's losing it, but he's trying to keep it

and i really can't take this." he was sentenced to five years. the five years have ended. so alaa has been in prison for ten years. this is a kidnapping, and... a legal out of it. he has to serve. in that case, they will have to say what these two

they're not... they're acting like two years of our lives he has a british passport. and i don't know if you know or not, but previously, when i used to campaign for my brother back in egypt, i got arrested myself. our legal situation was absolutely the same. but i got consular access and i got released on time. cos it is very important to what happens next. butjust one more, very difficult and very

we cannot countenance you losing your life in this way for this," would you change your mind? i'm not sure. i mean, iwould have to consider this, but i think they would be wrong to say that. because...for two reasons. if you back down... i know the egyptian system. i know that if you back down, you don't go you go back to like minus ten or something. woman who has had a full and rich life.

have a longer life. and also, there is the factor of my grandson, alaa's son. he's 13 now, he's autistic. he's in england. he's in england, in a very good school for special needs. even more than other children. khaled needs his father. let us now talk about the british government's position.

minister keir starmer. tell me whether, having had the meeting, you now feel first, maybe the word pressure is not the right word. i think prime minister starmer is capable of persuading... ..mr sisi to release alaa. whether...

the means he uses is his own... it's for him to decide. they can work out things together. they should be even more friendly now, because they both exactly. which is something, obviously, the egyptian government and the british government has expressed its so, i'm optimistic... but if i may say so, you two and the rest before this labour government,

and you've been talking to david lammy, the foreign secretary, for quite a long time. government was a government that was on its way out. so, really, the egyptian government didn't have to take it seriously. stay for five years. so that's different. the other thing that's different is, in egypt, between the two foreign offices, which is...

i mean, you know, mr lammy was doing a lot, but i always believed this was a waste of time to talk to the foreign minister, the egyptian foreign minister. the real... it's about sisi. well, let me, then, if i may... i understand, i mean, sisi, like mubarak before him, was a general who threw away the military uniform to don the dark suit of a civilian president. because you became a civil society activist, i mean, sisi won re—election not so very long ago with 89% of the vote.

a meaningful election or not. but his strength, his domination he's a very transactional man. the egyptian authorities show thick skin. and they were released. sisi, like any smart dictator, uses the things at his disposal as tools. i think we didn't have

any british government but husbands of a citizen, things like that, as a priority, they managed to negotiate a deal. to set an example. so he used him to keep him in prison. politically, sisi does not need alaa to stay in prison. history has passed. a decade has passed. concerned with, such as, like, the economic crisis, the push for displacement,

all of these things. really in the top priority of the egyptian government. that's not the case in an authoritarian regime. like, offered something or pushed to do otherwise. right, so let's talk leverage, then. the united states has, over decades, given tens assistance to the egyptian government. and, let us be honest, it has also criticised egypt

prioritised its disquiet over those abuses over the continued my brother is... to the british government. their vision of the region... you need to stick to the specific. yeah, and we are a british responsibility, because we're british. we don't have..." and strategically vital, they would say. and strategically vital. and my...

"so we can't push them to do something they don't want to do." them, "i need this done. this is my citizen. i need you to abide by the law. i need you to allow me access to my citizen." it's not much to ask. and i have not seen them actually try. this is my issue. i feel a bit more positive now that we met with the pm, because i don't think... families of brits detained abroad, the bigger challenge is how systematically the foreign office isjust

ithink... what we're... the frustrations we're feeling towards the foreign office as an entity... i'm not speaking about the labour government. there is something way more systematic here. yes, exactly. plans," and these plans... and we keep saying, "yeah, great plan. go ahead, please do it." they don't actually work on them. about it, but they're not speaking to which sort of brings us back to where we started, laila, by weaponising your own life. so i want to end with this.

and it struck me as remarkable. generation, that my younger daughter" — that is you — i want them going forward to be proud of me." do you think you've made your kids proud? that's a question to put to them, not to me! yes, of course i'm proud of her. i'm extremely proud. i think it's doable,

i think it's easy. i think the british government can get it as a favour from a friend, but i think the british government is too but i'm extremely proud of my mother. do you still have hope, right now, in your position? soon, like, days, not weeks — because i don't think my body between him and mr sisi. and i'm very hopeful that if there is this direct contact, the ball will start rolling. laila soueif and sanaa seif,

i thank you both very, thank you. on wednesday for some, it was another grey, bleak day. in pateley bridge, north yorkshire, the cold thick enough for drizzle and temperatures struggled — just a maximum afternoon high of two celsius. different story further south and west, though. early morning sunshine in devon.

we've got showery outbreaks of rain drifting north and east. mild air for this time of year. into the weekend. but look at these temperatures. first thing on thursday morning, widespread double yes, a very mild start for most. but there will also be quite a misty, murky story. showers to the north—west. be for this time of year, 12—14 celsius. of thursday into friday, accompanied by gale—force gusts of winds as the isobars squeeze together.

and there will be further outbreaks of rain. maybe with some sunshine, and if we get some sunshine coming through here, temperatures are likely so once again, it's going to be a wet and windy affair if we get some sunshine, not out of the question that we see 16 somewhere across south—east england. pressure arrives on sunday. the winds perhaps even stronger still, so keep watching but as you can see, a better day on saturday.

live from washington, this is bbc news.

tensions grow between the us and ukrainian presidents. donald trump calling volodymyr zelensky a "dictator" and mr zelensky saying mr trump is living president "disinformation space". trump claimed zele ns ky president trump claimed mr have attended zelensky could have attended talks in saudi arabia despite tails; inéggfiiérébig fiéséi’té being invited. with israel moves forward to a second phase next month. hello, i'm lucy hockings. we begin with the glowing war of words between the us and on truth ukrainian presidents. on truth social on wednesday, donald trump slammed volodymyr saying his ukrainian 5 better move fast or counterpart better move fast or

he's not going to have a left. he