CAIRO - A court ordered a leading independent Egyptian news site closed on Tuesday after its editor-in-chief was convicted of running the site without a licence and taken into custody pending bail, her lawyers and the outlet said, Reuters reported. Lina Attalah of Mada Masr, which has won numerous international awards for its reporting, was fined 3 million Egyptian pounds ($53,400), her lawyers told Reuters. The court gave her the maximum penalty, ordering the website to be shut down and its equipment confiscated, Mada Masr said in a statement.
3 million Egyptian pounds is 30 lakh pounds in Egyptian currency - about US$53,400, yaani roughly Rs 47 lakh. Attalah's earlier bail in the same case was 100,000 Egyptian pounds, about $1,780.
Human Rights Watch, which had called before the hearing for the charges to be dropped, said after the verdict that the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court convicted Attalah in a single hearing on October 27, fined her 3 million Egyptian pounds and ordered the website's closure, and that authorities took her into custody after the hearing. Mada Masr reported that before ruling, the judge cleared the courtroom, rejected all procedural motions presented by Attalah's defence team - including requests to present evidence and hear from witnesses - and replaced her defence counsel against her will, HRW said. 'The summary conviction of Lina Attalah in a sham process involving a single, rushed hearing is a complete travesty of justice,' said Bassam Khawaja, HRW's deputy Middle East and North Africa director. 'President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government is clearly determined to wipe out the last remnants of independent media in the country.'
Source: Human Rights Watch, Oct 27, 2026 - Egypt: Prominent Journalist Lina Attalah Detained
Amnesty International called the ruling 'a crushing blow to press freedom in Egypt' and 'a dark day for independent journalism'. Its Senior Director for Regional Impact, Yasmine Ahmed, said the court had ordered Mada Masr's closure and the seizure of its property and was detaining Attalah until payment of the fine is made. Amnesty said Mada Masr had repeatedly attempted to apply for a licence since the new media law was passed in 2018, but the authorities had continuously denied or failed to respond to its application, and it demanded the verdict be overturned and the forced closure halted.
The case moved fast. Attalah received a summons on October 19 to appear before the Supreme State Security Prosecution; prosecutors questioned her on October 21 over allegations of publishing 'false news' and operating a website without a licence and released her on bail of 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,780); and on October 22 they referred her to trial in Case No. 9072/2026 on the licence charge alone, according to HRW's account of the proceedings. After the referral last Thursday, a group of 119 rights groups and media outlets, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the case an 'unprecedented attack on press freedom', Reuters reported, and US Senator Chris Van Hollen said on X that the charges were baseless and that 'journalism is not a crime'. Egyptian authorities say the state is committed to upholding freedom of expression but that the media must operate within the law, respect national security and counter misinformation, Reuters reported.
Founded in 2013, Mada Masr is the most internationally prominent independent outlet in a media landscape mostly dominated by outlets owned by or closely affiliated with the state, and it regularly publishes on politically sensitive topics, Reuters reported. It has been blocked inside Egypt since 2017. Mada Masr says six cases have been brought against it and its journalists over the last six years, though rights groups say this is the first of its kind to be referred to trial. Attalah was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2020. The case follows the arrest last month of the entire newsroom of the fact-checking outlet Matsaddash, Reuters reported.