130 Egyptian and international human rights and press organizations condemned, in a joint statement issued on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, the ruling to shut down the Mada Masr website and fine its editor-in-chief Lina Attalah, and called on the Egyptian authorities to grant licenses to independent media outlets without discrimination and to release immediately and unconditionally 25 journalists currently detained in Egypt.
The signatories include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, PEN International and the International Press Institute. The organizations called for an end to the use of licensing provisions in media laws to criminalize journalism, and for an end to the intimidation campaign they said targets journalists, independent media and the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate.
The New Cairo Misdemeanor Court had ruled on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, convicting Attalah of managing a website without a license, fining her 3 million pounds ($62,111.80), and ordering the closure of the website and the confiscation of its devices and equipment. Security forces detained her inside the court after the ruling, and she was released seven hours later. During her release procedures, she learned of an in absentia ruling issued against her in 2024 sentencing her to one year in prison on charges of publishing false news and managing a website without a license. Her defense objected to the in absentia ruling, and the court will hear the objection on Wednesday, November 11, 2026.
The organizations said the campaign against independent journalism began in late September with the arrest of six journalists from the fact-checking platform Matsda2sh, and that some of them reported being tortured and having “confessions” extracted from them. The Public Prosecution had said in a statement issued on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, that it found no visible injuries on any of the defendants in the case, and that forensic reports did not establish signs of violence on three of them who claimed they had been abused. The joint statement said Mada Masr intends to appeal the ruling.
Photo: Jennifer 8. Lee via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
