From The Cairo Report

In the latest episode of Egypt’s brutal, ongoing crackdown on journalism, the Supreme State Security Prosecution has summoned Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah for questioning on Wednesday, October 21, as part of a newly opened investigation, Mada Masr stated on 19 October. The notice provides no explanation for the summons, marking the sixth criminal case launched against the news outlet, its staff, and its editor over the past six years.

Prosecutors last summoned Attalah in August 2025, releasing her on bail of 30,000 Egyptian pounds after Homeland Security accused her of “publishing false news” and “operating an unlicensed website” following an exposé on prison abuses.

The new summons comes just as eight Egyptian and regional newsrooms—including Mada Masr, Al Manassa, Saheeh Masr, Daraj, Sifr, Megaphone, Nawaat, and al-Jumhuriya—are launching a joint campaign in solidarity with the detained Matsada2sh (Arabic for “Don’t Believe It”) newsroom. The campaign aims to scrutinize official government records, underscoring the state’s relentless reliance on judicial harassment to keep its few remaining domestic critics under constant threat.

On 5 October, Egyptian journalist Rasha Azab was summoned by the State Security Prosecution for questioning in Case No. 8025 of 2026. She faced the charge of “using a website to promote ideas calling for the commission of terrorist crimes” and was released on bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately $190) after eight hours of questioning.

Days earlier, between the evening of 28 September and 30 September, security forces arrested the entire Matsada2sh newsroom: journalists Abdallah Qadri, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Mohamed Adel, Islam Barakat, Mohamed Mahmoud, and Omar Helal. The six make up the platform’s entire Egypt-based newsroom, which operates one of the country’s few remaining independent fact-checking and investigative outlets.

The journalists were forcibly disappeared for five days before beginning to appear before the Supreme State Security Prosecution on 4 October.

Lawyers from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), part of the journalists’ defence team, said most of the journalists subsequently told prosecutors they had been tortured inside Homeland Security facilities. According to the lawyers, the journalists said they had been stripped, blindfolded, bound with their hands behind their backs, beaten, and subjected to electric shocks.

Most of the journalists also reportedly said officers forced them to read fabricated “confessions” from sheets of paper while being filmed in what they described as “sessions with repeated takes” involving “professional filming crews”.

The Ministry of Interior accused the journalists of “working for an unlicensed, foreign-run platform that spread fabricated information on behalf of the banned Muslim Brotherhood”—allegations that Matsada2sh denied.

The allegations prompted the Egyptian Journalists Union Council to convene an emergency meeting on 5 October. Following the meeting, the council announced that it would file a complaint with the public prosecutor over the reported physical abuse and coerced recordings. It said it would seek to have any confession obtained under duress declared invalid and secure the release of all six journalists under the union’s guarantee.

The council also announced plans to establish a permanent committee, chaired by union head Khaled El-Balshy, to follow the case.

Of the six journalists, only Qadri is a registered union member. The council described the other five as trainee journalists.

The prosecution accused all six of joining a terrorist organization and ordered their pretrial detention at Badr 1 Prison, successor to the notorious maximum-security “Scorpion” prison complex. They remain in custody.

However, solidarity with them has not waned.

Since October 5, journalists have continued to stage daily sit-ins at the union’s headquarters demanding the release of their colleagues, most notably raising the slogan “journalism is not a crime”.

On October 10, the Journalists Union’s Freedoms Committee hosted a talk about imprisonment in publishing cases, attended by the families of detained journalists, including caricaturist Ashraf Omar, lawyers, journalists, editors, and others who showed up in solidarity.

Four days later, on October 14, dozens of members of the union’s general assembly organized a wider solidarity evening for imprisoned journalists, which included writing messages to their detained colleagues, making artwork demanding press freedom, and a storytelling session where reporters recounted past union battles against press crackdowns.

The Cairo Report is an independent, English-language socialist publication covering Egypt: politics, labor, policy, and the structures that shape everyday life.

What you can do:

• Send an email protesting the repression and harassment of journalists in Egypt to the Egyptian embassy in London using our tool on Action Network by clicking here
• Pass a resolution in your union branch demanding the immediate release of detained journalists and an end to attacks on the independent media