{"id":25131,"date":"2026-10-29T14:42:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T12:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=25131"},"modified":"2026-10-29T14:42:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T12:42:20","slug":"eu-mada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/eu-mada\/","title":{"rendered":"EU urges Egypt to protect independent media after ruling to shut down Mada Masr"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The European Union on Thursday, October 29, 2026, urged the Egyptian authorities to protect independent media outlets, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressclub.be\/press-releases\/egypt-statement-by-the-spokesperson\/\">statement<\/a> issued by its spokesperson, commenting on the conviction of Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Mada Masr, the closure of the website, and the continued detention of the Matsadaash newsroom.<\/p>\n<p>Anouar El Anouni, the EU spokesperson for foreign affairs, said that Egyptian laws recognise the right to freedom of opinion and expression, &#8220;which is a fundamental right,&#8221; and that &#8220;the preservation and the protection of independent media outlets are essential.&#8221; The statement noted that the EU-Egypt Association Agreement and the Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership between the two sides reflect a shared commitment to democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and that Egypt&#8217;s National Human Rights Strategy aims to strengthen pluralism and diversity of opinion.<\/p>\n<p>The statement highlighted two events: the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2026\/10\/02\/egypt-authorities-arrest-entire-investigative-newsroom\">arrest<\/a> of the Matsadaash newsroom on September 28 and 29, whose members remain in custody, and the conviction of Mada Masr&#8217;s editor-in-chief on October 27, which led to the website&#8217;s closure.<\/p>\n<p>The New Cairo Misdemeanor Court had issued, on Tuesday, October 27, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2026\/10\/27\/egypt-drop-charges-against-prominent-journalist\">ruling<\/a> fining Attalah EGP 3 million ($62,112) and ordering the closure of Mada Masr, after a single hearing, on the charge of establishing and running a website without a licence, after the Supreme State Security Prosecution referred her to trial in case no. 9072 of 2026. Attalah was released the same day after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.al-monitor.com\/originals\/2026\/10\/egypt-orders-closure-mada-masr-releases-editor-lina-attalah\">payment<\/a> of the fine. The 2018 Law on Regulating the Press and Media requires websites operating in Egypt to obtain a licence from the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, and Mada Masr has been blocked inside Egypt since 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"z3b-credit\"><small>Photo: Jan-Tore Egge via <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:EEAS_20221110_132551.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\">CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EU urged Egypt to protect independent media, two days after a ruling fined Lina Attalah EGP 3 million and ordered Mada Masr closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":25127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20481],"tags":[21266,2705,18546,18317,20490,18884],"kateb":[710],"class_list":["post-25131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-brief","tag-anouar-el-anouni","tag-european-union","tag-lina-attalah","tag-mada-masr","tag-matsadaash","tag-press-freedom-in-egypt","kateb-zawia3-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eu-mada-en.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131","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=25131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25133,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131\/revisions\/25133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25131"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=25131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}