Laila Soueif

Laila Soueif

Laila Soueif ( Arabic ليلى سويف, DMG Lailā Suwaif ; born 1956 ) is an Egyptian human and women's rights activist, mathematician and professor at Cairo University . Al Jazeera described her as "an Egyptian revolutionary". She is the widow of activist Ahmad Seif el-Islam and her three children are all well-known activists: Alaa Abd el-Fattah , Mona Seif and Sanaa Seif . Her sister is the writer Ahdaf Soueif .

Life

Soueif was born in 1956 to parents who were both university professors. In 1972, at the age of 16, she first took part in political protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Two hours later, she was found there by her parents and taken home. "From this I learned that it was easier to defy the state than my parents."

In the 1970s, Soueif studied mathematics at Cairo University .

Career

Soueif is a mathematics professor at Cairo University.

She is the founder of the March 9 professors' movement for university independence.

In November 2014, Soueif and her daughter Mona Seif ended a 76-day hunger strike to protest the imprisonment of their son and brother Alaa Abd El-Fattah . El-Fattah himself and his sister Sanaa remained on hunger strike.

Private life

Soueif met her future husband Ahmad Seif el-Islam in the mid-1970s at Cairo University, where he was already the "leader of an underground communist student cell calling for a revolution". He became a left wing human rights activist and lawyer. The two were married until his death in 2014.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} An Egyptian revolutionary . In: www.aljazeera.com . Retrieved November 12, 2017.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Laila Soueif Archives . In: Asharq al-Awsat English Archive . Retrieved November 12, 2017.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Activists Mona and Laila Seif end hunger strike . In: dailynewsegypt.com . Retrieved November 12, 2017.