Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah to face trial over unlicensed website charge

Egypt’s Supreme State Security Prosecution on Thursday referred Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of the independent news site Mada Masr, to trial on a charge of running a website without a license, hours after releasing her on bail of 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,905).

Her first hearing before the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court is set for Tuesday, Mada Masr reported, citing the outlet’s lawyer, Hassan El-Azhary. The case is registered as No. 9072 of 2026.

Prosecutors questioned Attalah for about six hours on Wednesday about how she runs Mada Masr and about a report the outlet published on Oct. 13 on a wave of prison protests and punitive transfers after the new criminal procedure law was postponed, human rights lawyer Nabeh El-Ghanady told Al Manassa.

Ragia Omran, a human rights lawyer who attended the session, told supporters that the investigator began by asking when Mada Masr was founded, how it is funded and who sits on the board of its parent company. Attalah responded by handing over the company’s commercial register, which lists all three.

Mada Masr says this is the sixth case brought against it in six years. In the most recent, in August 2025, the prosecution released Attalah on bail of 30,000 pounds (about $571) after charging her with spreading false news and running an unlicensed website. Those charges, based on investigations by the National Security Sector, followed a Mada Masr report on complaints from prisoners who said they had been abused.

The referral comes more than three weeks after the fact-checking platform Matsada2sh and its legal representative, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, announced that six of its journalists had been arrested. EIPR director Hossam Bahgat called the crackdown unprecedented in the history of the press.

Egypt ranks 169th of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index. In March 2024, the Journalists Syndicate criticized authorities for continuing to block several news sites, notably Mada Masr and Al Manassa, even as they lifted blocks on others including Darb, Al-Sulta Al-Rabea, Zat Masr and Masr 360. Al Manassa has been blocked 13 times, most recently in July 2022.