Cairo court orders Mada Masr shut and fines editor Lina Attalah EGP 3 million

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on 27 October convicted Lina Attalah, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the independent news site Mada Masr, of managing a website without a licence, imposed the maximum fine of 3 million Egyptian pounds (about US$54,000) and ordered the outlet closed and its equipment confiscated, according to Mada Masr, press-freedom groups and the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate.

Attalah was taken into custody inside the courthouse after the verdict and released roughly seven hours later once the fine was paid, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders said. RSF named the presiding judge as Mohamed Mubarak.

Eight days, start to finish

The speed is the story inside the story. According to syndicate head Khaled Elbalshy, as reported by Zawia3, Attalah was summoned by the Supreme State Security Prosecution on 19 October, questioned for more than six hours on 21 October and released on EGP 100,000 bail, referred to the misdemeanour court on 22 October, and convicted at the first hearing on 27 October. Defence requests for adjournment and access to case documents were refused, Zawia3 reported; CPJ said journalists were kept out of the courtroom during critical stages.

Mada Masr has said it sought a licence for years without a reply; RSF says the outlet has taken the required steps since 2018. Its website has been blocked inside Egypt since 2017, the New York Times noted — meaning the closure order bites hardest on its legal and physical operations rather than on domestic web access that was already cut.

A wider squeeze

“The world cannot keep watching in silence as Egypt’s independent journalism dies,” CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said in the joint statement backed by 129 organisations. CPJ counts at least 25 journalists currently behind bars in Egypt, and both CPJ and RSF tie the Mada Masr case to last month’s arrest of the newsroom of the fact-checking platform Matsadda2sh.

The syndicate says it will challenge the ruling; Mada Masr’s lawyer told Zawia3 that appeal and suspension procedures were linked to payment of the fine, which has now been made. Whether the closure is enforced pending appeal is the next fact to watch.

AB24’s Cairo desk notes the obvious professional interest: this is a ruling about a newsroom. We report it on the record from the court outcome and the published statements of the parties and monitors, and will update when an appeal date is set.

Sources: CPJ, 27 Oct 2026; CPJ and partners joint statement, 28 Oct 2026; RSF, 27 Oct 2026; Zawia3, 27 Oct 2026; AP; New York Times via Africa Center media review, 28 Oct 2026.

— AB24 · Cairo