Egypt court orders Mada Masr closed, fines editor Lina Attalah EGP 3 million

An Egyptian court on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, ordered the closure of the independent news website Mada Masr and fined its editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, EGP 3 million (about $54,000) for running a website without a licence. Attalah was taken into custody at the courthouse until the fine is paid. The verdict, from the New Cairo Misdemeanour Court, can be appealed, and her lawyers say they will do so.

The verdict

The ninth circuit of the New Cairo Misdemeanour Court tried Attalah under Article 105 of Law No. 180 of 2018, which governs the press and media. The article sets a fine of EGP 1–3 million for anyone who sets up or runs a website without a licence from the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, doubles it for repeat offences, and lets the court order closure and confiscation of equipment. The court imposed the maximum on every count.

Part of the ruling	Decision
Court	New Cairo Misdemeanour Court (ninth circuit)
Charge	Running a website without a licence
Law	Article 105, Law No. 180 of 2018
Fine	EGP 3 million (about $53,500–54,000) — the legal maximum
Website	Ordered closed
Equipment	Ordered confiscated
Custody	Attalah held until the fine is paid
Status	First-instance verdict; appeal planned

Defence lawyers said the judge rejected their procedural requests, including bids to submit documents and call witnesses. When her eight lawyers declined to plead while those requests went unanswered, the judge appointed a lawyer from outside the team to represent her, to which Attalah objected. Tuesday's session was the first hearing in the case.

How the case unfolded

On October 21, the Supreme State Security Prosecution questioned Attalah on suspicion of running an unlicensed website and publishing false news, then released her on EGP 100,000 bail. On October 22 she was referred to trial on the licence charge alone. Five days later she was convicted.

Background: a long licence dispute

Mada Masr was founded in 2013 and publishes in Arabic and English. It became known for investigative reporting on politics, the security services and the economy, and has been blocked inside Egypt since 2017, along with hundreds of other websites, though readers abroad and those using VPNs can still reach it.

The outlet says it applied for a licence in October 2018, again in August 2020 after the law's regulations were issued, and submitted what it calls a complete application in June 2023, without ever receiving a decision. In a 2022 administrative court case, the media council said the application lacked some documents. In October 2023 the council ordered the site blocked for six months, citing the lack of a licence and the publication of false news.

Attalah has faced repeated legal action. She was briefly detained in 2020 while reporting outside Cairo's Tora prison and has been questioned in several earlier cases.

Reactions

Amnesty International called the verdict "a crushing blow to press freedom". Before the hearing, 119 rights groups and media organisations, including Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, had called the prosecution an "unprecedented attack on press freedom" and urged the charges be dropped.

Khaled El-Balshy, head of Egypt's Journalists Syndicate, said the syndicate had written to the media council about Mada Masr's licence application and would back the outlet in court. The syndicate argued that licensing disputes belong in administrative courts, not criminal ones, and called for the rules to be reviewed. The Supreme Council for Media Regulation had not commented publicly by Tuesday afternoon.

Why it matters

The ruling turns a long-running licence dispute into a criminal conviction, and press freedom groups fear it creates a template that could be used against other independent sites still waiting for licences. Egypt already ranks among the world's most restrictive countries for journalists. The case comes as Cairo deepens its regional security role, including approving military support for Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, and as Western partners weigh human rights concerns against strategic ties.

What happens next

Attalah's lawyers plan to appeal to a higher misdemeanour court, which could overturn or reduce the sentence. She remains in custody until the fine is paid. It is not yet clear how the authorities will enforce the closure of a site that is already blocked in Egypt and hosted outside the country; Mada Masr has not said whether it will stop publishing.