Egypt Orders Mada Masr Closed, Fines Editor $53,500

Security officers carried Lina Attalah out of a Cairo courtroom on Tuesday.

A judge convicted the editor-in-chief of Mada Masr of running an unlicensed website. The court ordered the independent outlet closed and imposed a fine of 3 million Egyptian pounds, approximately $53,500. The judge also ordered the confiscation of the outlet's property.

Attalah remained in custody at the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon. Hossam Bahgat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, attended the hearing. He stated that Judge Mohamed Mubarak cleared the room of everyone except Attalah and her lawyers after deliberations. Plainclothes officers and guards then filled the room, including a National Security Agency officer.

The judge rejected all procedural requests from the defense, including motions to submit documents and hear witnesses. The defense refused to enter a plea while those requests went unanswered. The judge appointed a lawyer unknown to the defense team to represent Attalah. Bahgat described the move as astonishing to those present. The eight lawyers on Attalah's team objected, and Attalah told the court she did not accept the appointment. The judge refused to record her objection in the minutes.

The judge began writing down requests attributed to the court-appointed lawyer, who had not spoken. The verdict was read over shouts from the defense. Sara Qudah, regional director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the detention an attack on free speech. She stated that the conviction represents a direct message aimed at dismantling independent media in the country. Qudah added that if Egypt can detain one of its most respected editors and shut down her newsroom, no independent journalist in the country is safe.

Attalah was referred for trial on October 22 in Case No. 9072/2026. Prosecutors questioned her for more than six hours the day before. They questioned her on publishing false news regarding prison protests, but dropped that accusation from the charge sheet. She had been released on 100,000 Egyptian pounds, or $1,053, in bail. Mada Masr was founded by Attalah in 2013 and has been blocked inside Egypt since May 2017. The outlet has applied for a license multiple times since 2018.

The outlet said it learned the regulator rejected its application in 2022. Attalah was shown the decision while being questioned in another case. The Journalists' Syndicate, headed by Khaled al-Balshy, argued that the proper recourse was a challenge before administrative courts rather than criminal prosecution. This is the sixth legal case brought against Mada Masr in six years. In August 2025, prosecutors questioned Attalah over false news and operating without a license after a report on abuses at Badr 3 prison. In 2022, Attalah and three other journalists faced trial for offending pro-government lawmakers. Security forces raided the Cairo office in November 2019.

The verdict came less than a month after security forces arrested six journalists from the investigative platform Matsadaash on September 28 and 29. Attalah received her summons hours after Mada Masr joined seven other Arab outlets in launching a joint newsroom. Before the ruling, 119 rights organizations and media institutions condemned the case as an unprecedented attack on press freedom. Human Rights Watch said the prosecution raised concerns about licensing requirements being used to restrict independent media. Egypt ranks 169th of 180 countries in the 2026 Reporters Without Borders index.