Egypt’s Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered today, Tuesday 27 October 2026, the detention of the six journalists from the Matsda2sh platform to be extended for another 15 days pending investigation in Case No. 8083 of 2026, registered with the Supreme State Security Prosecution.
The decision covers Mohamed Ashraf Abu Omeira, Abdallah Kadry, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Adel and Mohamed Mahmoud. They face charges of joining and financing a terrorist group, spreading false news, and using a social media account to promote it. The journalists denied these charges, according to their defence team.
This is the second extension of the Matsda2sh team members’ detention. Prosecutors previously extended it for the same period on 13 October, after completing questioning. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said at the time that they had not been confronted during the hearing with any evidence substantiating the charges against them.
Security forces arrested the six journalists successively on 28 and 29 September, at their homes and on a Cairo street, and seized their phones and computers. Their whereabouts remained unknown to their families and lawyers for several days before they appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, according to the platform and human rights organisations.
In an earlier statement, the Public Prosecution said the investigation began on the basis of National Security Sector inquiries that alleged the platform had links to the Muslim Brotherhood, published false news and statements, and received money from abroad. It added that an examination of one defendant’s phone had revealed, according to its account, groups and messages linking him to people outside Egypt. These allegations do not establish the facts before a final court judgment has been issued.
Matsda2sh, for its part, denied the allegations and affirmed that it is an independent Egyptian journalism platform that has operated openly for years, and that its team members carry out professional journalistic work in fact-checking and producing investigations. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights also said the journalists denied the charges during questioning.
The journalists told their lawyers that they had been beaten, forcibly stripped, subjected to electric shocks and threats, and forced to record filmed confessions during their detention before being brought before prosecutors, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the defence team. The Interior Ministry denied this account, while the prosecution later announced that forensic medical reports concerning three of them had found no injuries or signs of violence. The journalists’ and the authorities’ accounts of the conditions of detention remain contradictory.
The team includes one registered member of the Journalists Syndicate, Abdallah Kadry, alongside five trainee journalists. The syndicate said their professional status is not limited to membership on its registers, noting that some team members had previously submitted their employment contracts to it following similar arrests three years ago, and subsequently continued working at the platform without charges being brought against them.
Lawyers from the Journalists Syndicate and several members of its council attended today’s hearing as part of the syndicate’s call for the journalists’ release and the protection of their legal rights. The hearing coincided with a ruling fining Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah three million Egyptian pounds, closing the website and confiscating its equipment, over a charge of operating a website without a licence.
