{"id":16281,"date":"2026-08-06T17:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T15:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=16281"},"modified":"2026-09-10T17:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:06:26","slug":"silencing-the-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/silencing-the-press\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Press Falls Silent by Prosecutorial Order"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A request submitted by the defense team of attorney Sally Al-Jabbas, who stands accused of killing her mother and mutilating her body in Alexandria Governorate, to the Prosecutor General to issue a publication ban order in the case has reopened debate over the boundaries between society’s right to information and the prosecution’s authority to restrict the circulation of information. While the defense team justified its request<\/a> by citing the need to preserve the confidentiality of investigations and protect the rights of the accused, other lawyers and journalists argued that the case does not fall within the categories in which the law permits publication bans, asserting that the default position is the availability of information and that bans remain exceptional measures to be resorted to only within the narrowest limits.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the Prosecutor General has issued publication ban orders in a number of cases that captured public attention. The most recent was a decision in April 2026 encompassing four criminal cases, including incidents of sexual assault and suicide, with a ban on the circulation of any information about them in traditional and digital media pending the conclusion of investigations.<\/p>\n

A publication ban<\/a> is defined under Egyptian law as a measure that prevents the circulation or publication of information or details related to a specific incident or case through various media outlets, whether print, visual, or audio, during a specific phase of investigation or trial proceedings. Its scope covers the parties and individuals connected to the case, including media outlets and parties to the judicial process, in accordance with the order issued by the competent authority.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian constitution, for its part, guarantees citizens’ right to access information. Article 68 stipulates that “information, data, statistics, and official documents are the property of the people,” and that disclosure from their various sources is a right guaranteed by the state to every citizen, with state institutions obligated to make them available transparently, and the law to regulate the controls for accessing them and their confidentiality. The constitution also mandates the establishment of rules for appealing the refusal to provide information, and for penalties related to withholding it or deliberately providing false information.<\/p>\n

With the Sally Al-Jabbas defense team’s request for a publication ban in the case, the debate over the dividing line between citizens’ right to information and the prosecution’s authority to restrict the circulation of information has returned to the fore. When does the law permit the Prosecutor General or the judiciary to issue a publication ban? And are there specific criteria governing recourse to this measure, or does it remain subject to discretionary judgment on a case-by-case basis?<\/p>\n

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Recommended Reading: 36 Deaths in Detention Facilities Over Six Months, and Mohamed Adel Threatens Suicide<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Publication Bans, Their Limits, and the Law<\/h3>\n

In a paper<\/a> entitled “Publication Bans and the Right to Knowledge,” the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression argues that publication bans do not represent the default rule, but rather an exceptional measure that restricts actions that are inherently permissible, namely the circulation and dissemination of information. The default in journalistic practice is freedom of publication and the public’s right to access information, while bans come as an exception imposed by specific circumstances related to the nature of the case or the stage of legal proceedings, not to journalistic practice in itself.<\/p>\n

The Association notes that assessing the legality of publication ban orders is not tied solely to the nature of the information covered by the order, but also to the surrounding circumstances and the objective behind preventing its circulation, such that the restriction is justified by a clear legal interest, including protecting the integrity of investigations, the rights of parties to the case, or ensuring that the course of justice is not influenced.<\/p>\n

On this basis, the paper argues that the issuance of ban orders should be grounded in clear justifications related to protecting a specific legal interest, whether preserving the integrity of investigations, protecting the rights of parties to the case, or preventing the influencing of the course of justice.<\/p>\n

It further holds that the assessment of the use of publication bans should not be limited to the mere existence of the order, but should extend to examining its justifications, scope, and duration, namely the nature of the information barred from circulation, the circumstances that necessitated imposing the restriction, and the extent to which judicial bodies have adhered to the limits set by the legal texts regulating this authority.<\/p>\n

Lawyer Yasser Saad, for his part, considers that publication bans represent an exception to the general principle of the publicity of investigations and trials, explaining that the law has established different standards for their use depending on the stage of the case. He notes that the confidentiality of preliminary investigations may be justified in some cases, due to the possibility of their connection to personal information relating to parties in the case, or concerns about influencing the collection of evidence and the course of investigations.<\/p>\n

Saad told Zawia3 that the core problem arises in publication ban orders relating to trials, since the default, according to the Egyptian constitution and international covenants including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is the publicity of trial sessions as one of the guarantees of justice and oversight of procedural integrity. This publicity may not be restricted except in exceptional cases assessed by the court relating to the protection of public order, public morals, or national security considerations, according to the circumstances of each case.<\/p>\n

He adds that the regulation of publication bans rests on a set of legal texts that distinguish between the investigation and trial phases, noting that the Code of Criminal Procedure grants investigative authorities the power to preserve the confidentiality of proceedings if publication could undermine the interests of the investigation, influence its course, or harm the rights of parties to the case, in accordance with Articles 190 and 193 of the Penal Code alongside Article 268 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, texts that set a framework for this authority and define the circumstances in which publication may be restricted.<\/p>\n

Saad stresses that the investigative authority’s mere assessment of the value of a ban is not sufficient on its own, and that any order must be grounded in clear and specific justifications tied to a genuine legal interest, warning that the expansion in the use of publication ban orders without objective grounds could undermine the principle of the publicity of justice. He affirms that the publicity of investigations and trials is not a procedural formality, but a fundamental guarantee for strengthening citizens’ confidence in the justice system.<\/p>\n

With regard to criminal cases of a particular nature, such as murder or domestic violence, Saad argues that the assessment of whether a publication ban is needed must be tied to the circumstances of each case and the interests of its parties, particularly the accused or the victim, explaining that the circulation of names or personal information not directly connected to the case could cause harm to privacy and reputation. He affirms that the publication of information relating to cases represents one of the tools of societal oversight over the course of justice and the protection of the rights of the accused, while noting that determining whether confidentiality is necessary must rest on an objective assessment of the potential harms of publication, not on treating bans as the default.<\/p>\n

He points out that the problem does not lie in the existence of legal authority to impose publication bans, but in how that authority is used, affirming that any decision to restrict the circulation of information must rest on clear and specific justifications tied to a genuine legal interest, not merely on the desire to prevent the details of cases from reaching the public.<\/p>\n

Egyptian law regulates publication bans through a set of legal texts that distinguish between the investigation and trial phases. With regard to trials, the Code of Criminal Procedure establishes that the default is the publicity<\/a> of sessions, with Article 268 stipulating that sessions shall be held publicly, while granting the court exceptional authority to make them wholly or partially closed if considerations of public order or public morals require it. The recording and broadcasting of session proceedings is also not permitted except with written permission from the presiding judge after seeking the Prosecutor General’s opinion.<\/p>\n

The Penal Code<\/a> grants courts the authority to ban the publication of judicial pleadings or verdicts in whole or in part, pursuant to Article 190, if the nature of the case so requires in order to preserve public order or public morals. Article 193 criminalizes the publication of news regarding an ongoing criminal investigation if the investigative authority has decided to conduct it in the absence of the adversarial parties, or has banned the broadcasting of any part of it in the interest of public order, public morals, or the establishment of the truth.<\/p>\n

Article 187 of the Egyptian Constitution<\/a> stipulates that court sessions are public, unless the court decides to hold them in camera in consideration of public order or public morals, with verdicts to be pronounced in open session in all cases. This text affirms that the default is enabling the public to follow litigation proceedings, with publicity as one of the mechanisms of societal oversight over the work of the judiciary, thereby strengthening confidence in the justice system.<\/p>\n

This framework aligns with international standards, including Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights<\/a>, which establishes as a general rule that trial sessions are public, while permitting specific and narrow exceptions related to the protection of public order, public morals, or the interests of justice.<\/p>\n

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We Have Something to Hide<\/h3>\n

According to a research paper<\/a> entitled “We Have Something to Hide! A Paper on Publication Bans in Cases Involving Public Officials in Egypt,” published by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression in April 2021, publication ban orders have in recent decades been connected to a number of cases that captured public attention, including cases involving officials and public employees.<\/p>\n

The paper documented that during the presidency of former President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, investigative authorities issued publication ban orders in at least ten cases. Among them was the case of Mohamed Fouda, secretary to the then-Minister of Culture, who was arrested in 1997 along with former Giza Governor Maher Al-Jundi. The prosecution at the time withheld recordings between Fouda and senior state officials relating to corruption and bribery cases, and issued a ban on the publication of any news or information about the case, before he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n

According to the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, following the January 2011 revolution other publication ban orders were issued in cases linked to the accountability of figures from the former regime, including the trial of former President Hosni Mubarak, former Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly, and six of his assistants on charges of killing protesters and damaging public funds, in which Counselor Ahmed Refaat, presiding judge of the Fifth Chamber of the Cairo Criminal Court, issued a publication ban order. The Giza Criminal Court also issued a publication ban order on November 3, 2012 in the case known in media as the “Conscript Forced Labor” case, in which Habib Al-Adly and a number of his aides were accused.<\/p>\n

During the same period, the Head of the Military Judiciary, Major General Adel Mahmoud Al-Morsi, issued a publication ban order in 2012 in the case known in media as the “Virginity Tests” case, involving accusations against members of the armed forces of subjecting detained female protesters to forced virginity tests following the events of the January revolution, after the case had provoked widespread controversy over the responsibility of security and military authorities for the incident.<\/p>\n

In the subsequent years, publication ban orders continued in cases involving corruption and bribery charges. In June 2014, the Prosecutor General issued a publication ban on investigations related to the case accusing the head of the Port Said Ports Authority and six other defendants of receiving bribes, a case that later concluded with a sentence of five years of rigorous imprisonment for the main defendant. In 2017, a publication ban was issued in the Ministry of Agriculture bribery case, in which the accused included former Agriculture Minister Salah Helal and his office director, a case that concluded with prison sentences and fines for a number of defendants.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the Prosecutor General issued a publication ban in the case known in media as the “Grand Bribery” case at the State Council, in which Gamal Al-Labban, the Council’s Director General of Supplies and Procurement, was accused of receiving bribes after large sums of money were found in his possession. The case was followed by the resignation of Counselor Wael Shalaby, Secretary General of the State Council, before his death during the investigations, and concluded with a sentence of 25 years in prison for Gamal Al-Labban in 2017. A publication ban was also issued in the case accusing a head of a prosecution office in Nasr City and his brother, a counselor at the Court of Cassation, along with seven Interior Ministry officers, of trafficking in antiquities.<\/p>\n

Publication ban orders also extended to cases involving accusations against police officers in incidents of killing and torture. On October 22, 2011, the Alexandria Criminal Court issued a publication ban in the case of the killing of Khaled Said, in which two police officers were accused of causing his death. The Prosecutor General also issued two publication ban orders in 2015 in the cases of the killing of political activist Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh, who was shot during her participation in a peaceful vigil, and the killing of lawyer Karim Hamdi inside the Matariya police station, where two police officers were accused of torturing him to death. The Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh case concluded with judicial verdicts after a retrial, while the Karim Hamdi case concluded with the acquittal of the accused after a retrial.<\/p>\n

In cases of a sexual nature or those involving charges affecting reputation, publication ban orders were likewise issued. On February 2, 2021, the Criminal Court issued a ban in the case involving a Court of Appeal judge and two of his friends accused of abducting and raping a young woman, following the wide media circulation of the incident’s details and the controversy it provoked. The Prosecutor General also issued a publication ban on investigations into accusations against Judge Rami Abd Al-Hadi of demanding sexual bribes in exchange for issuing a ruling in favor of a woman, a case that concluded with his resignation without any announcement of his referral to trial.<\/p>\n

The paper concludes that the core problem does not lie in the existence of legal authority to issue publication ban orders, but in the clarity of the criteria governing their use, particularly in cases involving officials or public institutions. It argues that the absence of transparency regarding the reasons for issuing certain orders and the extent of their necessity may open the door to questions about the limits of this measure, and the extent to which it achieves a balance between protecting investigations and guaranteeing citizens’ right to information.<\/p>\n

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Recommended Reading: Between Two Presidential Calls to Develop the Media: 21 Journalists Detained and a Law Stalled<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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National Security<\/h3>\n

Publication ban orders in recent years have not been confined to corruption cases or those involving public officials, but have extended to certain criminal cases that attracted broad public attention. On April 12, 2026, the Prosecutor General issued a decision<\/a> banning publication in a number of cases that had been widely circulated on social media platforms, including Incident No. 3764 of 2026, Sidi Jaber Administrative, relating to the suicide of a woman in the Sidi Jaber area of Alexandria, in addition to Incidents Nos. 2094 of 2026 Criminal, Shibin Al-Kawm Center, and 3743 of 2026 Misdemeanor, Shibin Al-Kawm Center, relating to accusations against an uncle of sexually assaulting the two daughters of his brother. The decision also covered another incident, No. 3015 of 2026 Misdemeanor, Al-Shuhada Center, involving accusations against a father and grandfather of sexually assaulting a child before her murder.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Prosecutor General issued a decision<\/a> banning publication on investigations related to the case of student Naira Ashraf’s killing, which attracted widespread attention after it occurred outside Mansoura University. A decision<\/a> was also issued banning publication in the case involving accusations against a media figure of drug trafficking in 2025, and in the case of the killing<\/a> of a judge in 2024.<\/p>\n

In this context, Iman Awf, Rapporteur of the Freedoms Committee of the Journalists Syndicate, believes that recourse to publication bans may be justified in cases directly and clearly connected to national security, or where the publication of their details could cause real harm to security stability, foreign relations, or military installations, but stresses the necessity of clear standards defining the scope of this concept.<\/p>\n

The Rapporteur told Zawia3 that the main problem lies in the expansive interpretation of the concept of national security, and its occasional transformation into an elastic term that permits the inclusion of cases not directly connected to it, explaining that publishing investigations into corruption incidents or criticizing economic policies cannot necessarily be considered a breach of national security, and that combating corruption is in fact an intrinsic part of journalism’s oversight role.<\/p>\n

She also explains that the cases necessitating publication bans must remain limited and exceptional, while sufficient justifications do not exist for imposing them in ordinary criminal cases, corruption incidents, or events that do not directly affect national security interests. She warns that the expansion of ban decisions may produce counterproductive results, because journalists and press institutions are the parties most bound by these decisions given their subjection to professional and legal rules, while inaccurate information may continue to spread through non-professional pages and personal accounts on social media platforms.<\/p>\n

She adds that preventing publication without providing sufficient official information may contribute to the spread of rumors, affirming that the Prosecutor General’s role in issuing explanatory statements helps journalists maintain accuracy and limits uncontrolled speculation. She argues that practical experience in some cases, including those related to violence against women or violations within educational institutions, has shown that coordination between investigative authorities and journalists over what may be published can be more effective than a total ban.<\/p>\n

Awf affirmed that protecting the rights of the accused and victims is achieved not only by banning publication, but also by providing accurate and controlled information, achieving a balance between protecting the course of justice and society’s right to information.<\/p>\n

Researcher and political analyst Mostafa Shawky, for his part, argues that citizens’ right to information does not conflict with the principle of investigative confidentiality, explaining that the default in preliminary investigations is confidentiality in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, with the aim of protecting the course of the investigation, preserving evidence, and guaranteeing the rights of the accused and witnesses, not preventing society from knowing what is happening in public cases.<\/p>\n

Shawky told Zawia3 that the problem arises when confidentiality transforms from a measure for protecting the investigation into a means of suppressing public debate in cases that attract broad societal interest, affirming that publication bans must remain exceptional measures grounded in clear reasons linked to the interests of the investigation, not a tool for closing public space or preventing the circulation of information.<\/p>\n

Shawky argues that one dimension of the problem in the regulation of publication bans is the absence of detailed criteria obliging the Prosecutor General to state reasons for its decisions, alongside the absence of a clear legal avenue for challenging them, which leaves wide room for debate over the limits of this authority’s use.<\/p>\n

With regard to certain decisions that attracted criticism, Shawky explains that the debate does not concern the principle of confidentiality in itself, but the extent to which the decision is tied to the circumstances of the case and its justifications, noting that publication ban decisions in cases such as the Children’s Cancer Hospital 57357 and other cases that captured public attention raised questions about the necessity of restricting the circulation of information in cases that touch on the public interest.<\/p>\n

Shawky affirmed that the solution does not lie in abolishing the Prosecutor General’s authority to issue publication ban decisions, but in establishing clearer standards for their use, achieving a balance between protecting investigations and the rights of parties to cases on one hand, and society’s right to information and the ability to follow public cases on the other.<\/p>\n

Between society’s right to know what is happening in public cases and the right of the accused and victims to privacy protection and a fair trial, the fundamental challenge remains achieving a balance between the two interests without the exception becoming the rule.<\/p>\n

The experiences of recent years reveal that the absence of transparency regarding the reasons for issuing certain publication ban orders, or the expansive interpretation of their justifications, leads to increased controversy, particularly in cases involving public officials or those that touch on public interests. Conversely, the provision of accurate and regular official information from investigative authorities can be a more effective alternative to outright prohibition, limiting the spread of rumors while guaranteeing the public’s right to information.<\/p>\n

The experts who spoke to this report share the view that the problem does not lie in the principle of publication bans in themselves, as an exceptional measure recognized by law, but in ensuring that they are not used to restrict societal oversight or withhold information in cases that citizens have an interest in following. Justice that society cannot see or understand may lose part of the trust it relies upon, while the publicity of proceedings and the right to information remain among the most important guarantees that strengthen citizens’ confidence in the justice system.<\/p>\n

By Shaimaa Hamdi, an Egyptian journalist covering political and rights issues, with a focus on women’s affairs and research in press freedom, media, and digital liberties.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The defense team’s request to impose a publication ban in the Sally Al-Jabbas case has reignited a legal debate: while law and constitution make such bans an exception restricted by clear justifications, publication ban orders have historically been issued in corruption and police crime cases without stated reasoning or any avenue for challenge \u2014 and bans silence journalists while rumors spread unchecked across social media platforms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":16007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[390],"tags":[],"kateb":[728],"class_list":["post-16281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","kateb-shimaa-hamdy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/\u062a\u0639\u062f\u064a\u0644-\u0627\u0644\u062f\u0633\u062a\u0648\u0631.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16282,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16281\/revisions\/16282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16281"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=16281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}