On November 11, Lina Attalah, founder and editor-in-chief of the independent Egyptian news outlet
Mada Masr
, will face trial for the second time in just two weeks. This time, she faces charges of spreading false news, an accusation that has become one of the Egyptian government's most frequently used tools for prosecuting journalists.
The trial follows a conviction on October 27, when Attalah was
found guilty
of managing an unlicensed news website. The Mada Masr team had repeatedly applied for a license, but their attempts went unacknowledged. The proceedings took place in a single hearing, which Mada Masr
states
included serious violations of her right to a fair trial. She was sentenced to the maximum fine of 3 million Egyptian pounds (approximately 55,000 USD), forcibly removed from the courtroom, and held for seven hours until the fine was paid. The court also ordered Mada Masr's closure and the confiscation of all equipment belonging to the organization.
The current wave of repression has also targeted
Matsada2sh
, a fact-checking and open-source intelligence initiative. Its entire six-person newsroom was
violently arrested
, illegally detained, and interrogated under torture before being charged with terrorism-related offenses and spreading false news. The team remains in pretrial detention.
According to CPJ, at least 25 other journalists are currently incarcerated in Egypt.
Governments seeking to control the flow of information increasingly rely on a combination of legal harassment, financial pressure, criminal prosecution, and restrictions on the infrastructure that makes independent publishing possible. Egypt's media licensing regime is a particularly troubling example. Requiring news organizations to obtain government authorization to operate creates an obvious mechanism for restricting who gets to publish and whose voices are allowed to reach the public.
The charge of spreading false news is similarly dangerous. Governments a
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