Pressure mounts on Egypt to release dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah

A key figure of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah gained British citizenship this year through his U.K.-born mother, Laila Soueif

International pressure mounted on Tuesday for the "immediate release" of Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, whose family fears for his life after he escalated his hunger strike by refusing water too as COP-27 opened.

After a seven-month stint during which he consumed only "100 calories a day", the 40-year-old British-Egyptian stopped drinking water on Sunday as world leaders gathered for the opening of the global climate summit in Egypt.

On Tuesday, a day after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron met with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and raised his plight, U.N. rights chief Volker Turk and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz demanded his release.

Abdel Fattah, currently serving a five-year sentence for "spreading false news" for reposting a Facebook post about police brutality, has been leading headlines during the U.N. summit, intensifying international attention on Egypt's rights record.

A key figure of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah gained British citizenship this year through his U.K.-born mother, Laila Soueif.

Ms. Soueif — who has been camped out in front of the prison for two days in the hope of receiving a letter as proof of life, according to daughter Mona Seif — warns her son many only have "a day or two or three at most".

In a message posted on Facebook, Ms. Soueif directed an appeal to world leaders at the COP-27 summit rather than the Egyptian authorities, who she accused of already having "so much blood on their hands."