Egyptian activist, mathematician, professor
Laila Soueif (Arabic: ليلى سويف; born 1956) is an Egyptian human and women's rights activist, a mathematician and professor at Cairo University. Al Jazeera has called her "an Egyptian revolutionary".[1] She is the widow of fellow activist Ahmed Seif El-Islam, and all three of their children are noted activists: Alaa Abd El-Fattah, Sanaa Seif, and Mona Seif. Her sister is the novelist Ahdaf Soueif.
Early life
Soueif was born in 1956, the daughter of university professors.[2] She went to her first political protest in 1972 in Cairo's Tahrir Square, when she was just 16.[2] Two hours later her parents tracked her down and brought her home, "From that, I learned that it was easier to defy the state than to defy my parents".[2]
Soueif studied mathematics at Cairo University in the mid-1970s.[2]
Career
Soueif is a professor of mathematics at Cairo University.[3][1]
Soueif is the founder of the 9 March Professors' Movement for Universities Independence.[3]
In November 2014, Soueif and her daughter Mona Seif ended a 76-day hunger strike, protesting against the imprisonment of her son Alaa Abd El-Fattah, but El-Fattah and his sister Sanaa Seif reportedly remained on hunger strike.[3]
Personal life
Soueif met her future husband, Ahmed Seif El-Islam, while at Cairo University in the mid-1970s, where he was already the "leader of an underground communist student cell calling for revolution".[2] He became a left-wing human rights activist and lawyer, and they were married until his death in 2014.
They are the parents of the activists Alaa Abd El-Fattah, Sanaa Seif and Mona Seif.[4][1] Her sister is the novelist Ahdaf Soueif.[5]
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