The referral of Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of Mada Masr, to trial on charges of establishing, managing and operating a website without a license, following the arrest of several members of the Matsada2sh editorial team, has renewed concerns over the legal and judicial risks facing independent news organizations in Egypt. It has also raised questions about whether the press and media law is applied consistently across outlets.
On Thursday, Oct. 22, Egypt’s Supreme State Security Prosecution referred Attalah to trial before the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court in the Fifth Settlement district. The case is registered as No. 11743 of 2026 (Fifth Settlement Misdemeanors) and No. 9072 of 2026 (Supreme State Security). Its first hearing is set for Tuesday, Oct. 27, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).
The referral came less than 24 hours after Attalah was questioned for more than six hours and released on bail of EGP 100,000. During questioning she faced two accusations: establishing, managing and operating a website without a license, in violation of Law No. 180 of 2018 on regulating the press and media, and publishing false news domestically and abroad likely to disturb public peace. The referral to trial, however, covered only the first charge, according to Mada Masr.
Attalah was summoned after Mada Masr and eight other independent news outlets announced a joint project, titled “Until Matsada2sh Is Back,” to fact-check claims made at the “Achievements Conference.”
The case is part of a broader licensing crisis facing independent news organizations in Egypt. Over the years, several outlets have applied for the licenses they need to operate. Some applications have been left pending, while others have been rejected or returned with requests for additional documents, without the process ever being resolved. In that legal limbo, sites that keep publishing without a license risk prosecution, with penalties that include a fine of up to EGP 3 million, closure and confiscation of equipment.
From Reporting on Prison Protests to Facing Trial
During the session, which lasted more than six hours, prosecutors questioned Attalah about a Mada Masr report on a wave of protests inside prisons that followed the postponement of the new Criminal Procedure Law. They also asked about how the outlet operates and how it is licensed. According to Mada Masr, the questioning included a review of National Security Agency investigation reports and their attachments, among them a letter from the Supreme Council for Media Regulation on the outlet’s licensing status.
Hoda Nasrallah, a human rights lawyer with EIPR and a member of Attalah’s defense team, said the penalty for founding a website without a license is a fine of no less than EGP 1 million and no more than EGP 3 million, along with closure of the site and confiscation of the equipment, devices and components used.
Nasrallah told Athar that referring Attalah to trial within hours of questioning her is not routine in comparable cases.
On Oct. 13, Mada Masr had published a report headlined “Wave of Prison Protests and ‘Exile’ Transfers After Criminal Procedure Law Is Postponed.” Drawing on lawyers, rights sources and detainees’ families, it documented protests in several prisons, including 10th of Ramadan, Minya and Badr, over the delay in implementing the new law and the continued use of prolonged pretrial detention. The report described security measures against detainees that, according to its sources, included transfers to distant prisons and the use of force against protesters. The Interior Ministry denied that any protests or violations had taken place in its correction and rehabilitation centers.
Halim Haneesh, a human rights lawyer, said the way prosecutors handle published reports of abuse inside prisons raises questions about their role in investigating such incidents, and about whether they treat the information as complaints of potential abuse that warrant investigation.
“When a press report or a rights group statement describes protests inside prisons, prosecutors should treat what it says as a report of possible abuse that requires investigation,” Haneesh told Athar. “Instead, journalists or rights defenders are summoned and asked about their sources and how they obtained their information, rather than the allegations themselves being investigated.”
Haneesh said this is a recurring pattern, not an isolated case. He cited the case of Matsada2sh team members, who told prosecutors they had been tortured. The prosecution then issued a statement saying they had been referred for forensic medical examination and that torture had not been established.
When a defendant reports being tortured, he said, prosecutors should treat that person as a victim in a separate case, open an investigation into the allegations, and hear their account of the circumstances, the methods used and those responsible, rather than relying solely on the results of a medical examination.
Haneesh links what he sees as a pattern in prosecutors’ handling of abuse complaints to mounting pressure on independent news organizations. He pointed to how quickly Attalah was referred to trial after being questioned and released on bail. The speed of the proceedings, he said, raises concern that prosecutions are being used to intimidate journalists and independent outlets. He placed the case in a wider context that includes the arrest of Matsada2sh team members and the summoning of journalist Rasha Azab following the announcement of a symbolic sit-in at the Journalists Syndicate.
He noted that these developments coincide with official statements about the circulation of information and with political debate over the future of power, constitutional amendments and the presidential election. They also coincide with calls from figures seen as aligned with the government, including Mostafa El-Feky and Mortada Mansour, to turn talk of political opening into concrete steps, even as judicial and security measures against journalists and independent outlets continue.
“We are looking at a clear contradiction between the talk of political opening and what is actually happening on the ground,” Haneesh said. “While people are discussing the need to open up, we are seeing journalists arrested and jailed, and then Lina Attalah summoned, released on bail and referred to trial with remarkable speed. I see this as pointing to an escalating pattern of targeting journalists, especially those working for independent news organizations.”
Selective Enforcement: Some Licenses Granted, Others Left Pending
While the editor-in-chief of Mada Masr faces trial for running a website without a license, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, headed by Khaled Abdel Aziz, announced approval of licenses for the international streaming platform Disney+ and a number of websites and apps, including Youlyo, Khalf al-Hadath, Al-Asima, Zaid and Masr Mobasher. It also approved the regularization of the status of three newspapers: Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Orouba and Al-Youm.
The council said the approvals followed a review of the files and confirmation that the legal and professional criteria had been met, in accordance with Law No. 180 of 2018 and its executive regulations. But the continuing disputes over the licensing of some independent outlets, even as licenses are granted to others, raise questions about the criteria governing decisions on applications, how consistently they are applied, and what legal safeguards exist for organizations whose applications are delayed or rejected.
Mada Masr is one such case. The outlet has submitted more than one application since the media law took effect in 2018, but its repeated attempts have failed, even after it turned to the Administrative Court to challenge the council’s failure to issue a license.
Mokhtar Mounir, head of the legal aid unit at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), said the crisis reveals selective enforcement of the press and media law and a lack of transparency in the council’s decisions. When organizations are not notified of decisions on their applications, he said, they cannot learn the reasons for a rejection, fix deficiencies in their documents or challenge decisions in court.
Speaking to Athar, Mounir said the charge on which Attalah was referred to trial concerns running a website without a license, according to information prosecutors gave the defense team. When he spoke, he added, the defense had not yet seen the formal charges or their legal classification.
He pointed to Article 59 of the law, which regulates licensing for establishing or operating websites, and to Article 105, which, as he described it, punishes violations of Article 59 with a fine of no less than EGP 1 million and no more than EGP 3 million, along with closure of the site and confiscation of the equipment, devices and components used.
These penalties carry particular weight, Mounir said, for news organizations that file formal applications to regularize their status but receive no clear response from the authority. That leaves their legal standing unresolved and exposes them to prosecution.
Mounir described Mada Masr’s efforts to obtain a license. Since the 2018 law was passed, he said, its legal representatives have submitted more than one application to regularize the site’s status, as other websites have also done in order to obtain the licenses needed to operate.
The law sets a 90-day deadline for deciding on license applications, Mounir said, and, in his interpretation, failure to issue an approval or rejection within that period amounts to tacit approval. He added that the law requires the council to notify an applicant within 30 days of receiving an application if documents are missing, so they can be supplied.
“If the council finds papers missing, it is supposed to contact the site’s management and specify which documents need to be completed, so the applicant can meet the requirements and obtain the license,” he said. “But according to what Lina Attalah said during the investigation, that did not happen.”
By Attalah’s account, Mounir said, Mada Masr did not receive an explicit decision rejecting its license at any point between 2018 and the date of her questioning, which would have allowed it to learn the reasons and challenge the decision in court.
The organization submitted a new application after the law’s executive regulations were issued, which set out licensing procedures and required documents in greater detail. It received no definitive response, he said, and went to the Administrative Court to challenge the authority’s failure to issue a license.
Mounir said the court’s ruling noted that some required documents had not been submitted, which the authority cited as grounds for withholding the license. But he argued that missing papers do not relieve the council of its legal obligation to tell the organization which documents are needed and give it a chance to provide them.
“Even if some papers were incomplete, the law regulates how to deal with that,” he said. “The council should have notified the organization of what was missing, instead of leaving the license application hanging for years without a clear answer.”
After the ruling, Mounir said, the organization reviewed and completed the required documents and resubmitted its application, but received no reply. He added that Mada Masr has also faced other proceedings before the council in recent years over complaints about content published on the site. In his account, these ended in sanctions that included blocking the site for six months and a fine of EGP 200,000, as well as referral of the complaint to the Public Prosecution. During questioning before the Cairo Appeals Prosecution, he said, the organization learned that a decision rejecting its license application existed, even though it had not been formally notified of it in previous years.
Mounir said this sequence raises questions about how the council handles license applications, particularly since, by his account, the organization went about four or five years without clear notice of the status of its application or of the documents it needed to complete.
“The problem is not that there are legal conditions for licensing,” he said. “The problem is that the procedures the law prescribes are not followed. A rejection decision must be reasoned, and the organization must be notified of it so it can complete its papers or challenge the decision in court.”
The purpose of regulating website licenses, he said, should be to set clear rules for practicing journalism, not to use licensing procedures to keep organizations from operating. Once a license is issued, he noted, the council has legal powers to deal with violations, including imposing administrative sanctions or referring conduct that may amount to a crime to prosecutors.
“The law regulates the practice of the profession; it shouldn’t become a means of preventing it,” he said. “If an organization meets the required conditions, getting a license should be made easier, and it can then be held accountable for any violations that occur afterward, through legal procedures and with legal guarantees.”
Mounir also pointed to licenses granted to other websites, including some focused on advertising, and to newly established sites that obtained licenses within short periods. He said he learned this while he was with a group of journalists and Journalists Syndicate board members on the day Attalah was questioned. Such disparities, he said, call for an explanation from the council about why decisions on applications from independent news organizations are delayed and what criteria it uses to grant or deny licenses.
“What is happening can’t be viewed apart from selective enforcement of the law,” he said. “Some websites get licenses within short periods, while applications from others stay pending for years, without the organizations ever knowing why they haven’t been licensed.”
The problem, he added, goes beyond administrative delay to a failure to make information and decisions available to the organizations the law applies to, which limits their ability to address deficiencies in their applications or exercise their right to go to court.
“We are facing selective enforcement of the law, along with a lack of transparency in how decisions are issued,” Mounir said. “A decision to reject a license must be reasoned, and the party concerned must be notified so they can challenge it in court. But in the cases we are discussing, the organization did not receive these decisions in a way that allowed it to exercise its legal rights.”
After Attalah was referred to trial, more than 118 news organizations and rights groups from around the world issued an urgent appeal calling for an end to her prosecution and to restrictions on independent journalism in Egypt. Athar joined the appeal, whose signatories include Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch and AFTE. The appeal pointed to Mada Masr’s repeated attempts to obtain a license since 2018 and to an application the site submitted in 2023 that remains pending. It warned that the trial could end in a fine of up to EGP 3 million and the site’s closure, and called for the release of journalists detained over their work.
Beyond Mada Masr: Pending Applications and Rejections Without Clear Reasons
The licensing problem is not limited to Mada Masr. Other independent news organizations have struggled in recent years to obtain the licenses they need to operate, despite filing formal applications with the Supreme Council for Media Regulation.
Among them is the platform Fakartany, whose owning company applied for a license in 2023 after completing the required procedures and paying the fees. In September 2024 it received a rejection that cited three grounds: an “unclear media policy,” “unclear sources of funding” and an “inadequate plan for securing devices.”
Fakartany’s dispute was among several raised at a session the Journalists Syndicate held on the sidelines of its Sixth General Conference. Participants discussed the legal and administrative obstacles facing digital journalism, the criteria for granting and denying licenses, and delays in notifying organizations of decisions on their applications.
The discussions also covered Zat Masr, which has struggled to obtain a license despite years of attempts, and Darb, the site of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, which was blocked after launching. They also addressed Mada Masr’s licensing applications and the lack of formal notification of some decisions concerning it.
Mohamed Salah, Fakartany’s general manager and legal representative, said delays by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation in deciding on applications from independent news sites turn licensing into a tool of pressure. They leave organizations exposed to prosecution for operating without a license even though they applied through official channels, he said.
Salah told Athar that Free Think Media, the company that owns the platform, was founded in 2023 and applied for a license a few months later, after paying the fees and submitting the required documents. According to his account, it received a rejection only after the legal deadline for deciding on the application had passed.
He said company representatives went to the council to ask why the application had been rejected. They were told to complete the documents and policies the council considered deficient and to submit a request for reconsideration.
Salah said the company completed the required documents and policies and appealed the rejection in December 2024. As of October 2026, approximately 22 months later, it had received no response from the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, he said.
The rejection did not resolve the platform’s licensing dispute. According to its legal representative, it continued even after the company completed the required documents and filed an appeal, with no response that would settle its legal status.
Salah believes that failing to notify organizations of license rejections, or leaving their applications pending, may be a way of keeping them in a precarious legal position that limits their ability to challenge decisions in court or take steps to correct their status.
“We believe the rejection decision already exists, but it isn’t announced to the organization so that it can’t challenge it in court,” he said. “The decision stays in a drawer until a problem arises, and then it’s used in front of prosecutors to accuse the organization of operating without a license. That way, the license becomes a sword hanging over the neck of independent journalism in Egypt.”
Salah links the licensing crisis to the proceedings other independent news organizations face. In his view, the prosecutions are not only about administrative violations but about the journalism these outlets produce, especially when it criticizes government policy or holds officials to account.
“Mada Masr isn’t being held to account, in my view, over unmet licensing procedures, but over the journalism it produces, and so are our colleagues at Matsada2sh,” he said. “As independent press, we are held to account because the authorities are displeased with some of what we publish, especially when it exposes officials’ failures or criticizes government policies.”
The pressure, he said, extends beyond organizations to the journalists who work for them, given the restrictions tied to membership in the Journalists Syndicate. He argued that the current legal framework exposes both institutions and their staff to simultaneous risks.
“We are caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “The press and media law leaves organizations open to accusations of operating without a license, and the Journalists Syndicate law leaves journalists who aren’t syndicate members open to accusations of impersonating a journalist. In both cases we don’t find the protection we are supposed to have to do our work.”
He called for an end to the indefinite suspension of license applications and for extending syndicate protection to journalists at independent digital outlets. Using the charge of operating without a license against organizations, he warned, could open the door to similar actions against other sites whose applications remain unresolved.
The nature of the prosecutions has also changed, Salah said. In his view, they no longer stop at holding journalists accountable for specific published pieces but now target organizations over the totality of their journalistic work.
“In the past, the talk was about holding a journalist accountable for what he publishes, so action was taken against him over a particular story,” he said. “Now we are dealing with platforms being held to account for their entire body of work. Matsada2sh is being held to account for its entire body of work, and so is Mada Masr, not over a single story.”
Salah said the pressure will not make Fakartany back down. “We will not yield to this pressure,” he said. “We will keep doing our work and delivering the content that satisfies us and our audience and uncovering the facts, regardless of whether it bothers some officials. The threat of using courts and prosecutors against our journalism will not intimidate us. We stand in solidarity with our colleagues at Matsada2sh and Mada Masr, and we hope this campaign, which we see as targeting independent journalism in general, not a single story, will stop.”
Website Licensing: Legal Ambiguity and Doubts Over the Constitutionality of the Penalties
A legal paper from Masaar has warned of legislative and constitutional problems with criminalizing the creation and running of websites without a license. The paper, titled “The Crime of Running a Website Without a License,” argues that Law No. 180 of 2018 broadened the Supreme Council for Media Regulation’s authority to cover sites that carry out no journalistic or media activity.
According to the paper, the law’s broad wording, together with the absence of precise definitions of the categories subject to licensing, leaves room for expansive interpretations. These could bring websites belonging to companies, unions, associations and clubs under the council’s authority, even though, in the paper’s legal analysis, its jurisdiction should be limited to sites engaged in journalistic, media or advertising activity.
The paper also points to ambiguity in the legal elements of the offense, particularly in identifying who is responsible for a site’s actual management, and whether liability falls on the legal entity or on the person who runs and operates it. It cites a ruling by the Cairo Economic Court in Case No. 819 of 2022 that acquitted a defendant of running a website without a license because the court was not satisfied that she actually managed it. A statement by the council that a site has no license is not enough on its own to prove the offense, the paper argues, unless investigators verify the nature of the site’s activity and whether the elements of criminal liability are met.
It criticizes the penalties in Article 105, which range from EGP 1 million to EGP 3 million, along with closure and confiscation of the equipment and devices used in committing the offense, arguing that they are disproportionate to a licensing violation. The paper raises doubts about their constitutionality, citing Article 71 of the Constitution, which generally prohibits the confiscation, suspension or closure of newspapers and media outlets, as well as the principle of proportionality between crime and punishment. It concludes that vague provisions and a broad scope of application, coupled with heavy fines, closure and confiscation, could turn the licensing system from a means of regulating media work into a tool for restricting press freedom and digital expression.
