New Cairo court orders Mada Masr closed and its equipment confiscated

The New Cairo Misdemeanour Court has turned a licensing prosecution into an order to close Mada Masr and confiscate its equipment, according to Al Jazeera. DW reports that the court convicted editor-in-chief Lina Attalah of operating without a licence and imposed the maximum fine of 3 million Egyptian pounds. That is severe enforcement against a newsroom that says its latest licence application remains unanswered, even allowing for the earlier refusal upheld by an administrative court. Separately, Attalah received a one-year sentence in absentia in 2024 on charges of publishing false news and operating an unlicensed website; her lawyers challenged that conviction, and a retrial was scheduled for November 11, 2026, DW reports.

The penalties reach beyond Attalah personally. Al Jazeera reports that the ruling rests on Article 105 of Egypt’s 2018 media law, which provides for fines of between 1 million and 3 million Egyptian pounds, plus closure and confiscation, for operating an unlicensed website. If implemented, the closure and confiscation orders could deprive Mada Masr of both its ability to operate and equipment used to report. The licensing case thus puts the newsroom’s continued work at stake, not simply its editor’s finances.

The licensing history complicates any suggestion that Mada Masr has merely been waiting for an initial decision; the separate 2024 conviction, which Attalah’s lawyers have challenged, does not resolve the status of the outlet’s later application. According to Al Jazeera, an administrative court upheld the Supreme Council for Media Regulation’s refusal in 2023 because proof of trademark registration was absent. The outlet’s lawyer disputed that ground, saying he had submitted a registration certificate. Mada Masr says its latest application has been awaiting a response since 2023, DW reports. A pending application is not a licence, but the earlier refusal does not settle the status of that later application either. This is a contested licensing history, not a reason to treat closure as a minor administrative sanction.

DW reports the authorities’ general position that Egypt respects freedom of expression while media organizations must comply with the law, protect national security and counter misinformation. That is not a case-specific explanation of this verdict. Requiring a licence and defending the severity of these penalties are different arguments: the existence of a licensing requirement does not, by itself, make the maximum fine and the loss of a newsroom proportionate.

The reported handling of the defence adds a separate concern. Attalah’s lawyers told DW that the court rejected requests to review the case file and submit additional evidence. Hearing attendee Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told AFP, in an account carried by the BBC, that the judge appointed another lawyer despite Attalah’s objection and dictated motions on that lawyer’s behalf. These attributed accounts raise a concrete procedural objection: penalties threatening the newsroom followed a hearing in which the defence says it could not present its case as requested.

DW reports that Mada Masr plans to appeal the closure order. Al Jazeera also reports that Journalists’ Syndicate head Khaled el-Balshy said the union would take legal action to appeal. Mada Masr paid the fine and Attalah was released, according to both outlets; that payment does not establish that closure or confiscation has been carried out.

DW describes Mada Masr as one of Egypt’s few remaining independent news outlets. That makes the reach of this decision especially consequential. The court did not merely impose a financial penalty for unlicensed operation: it ordered the institution closed and its equipment taken. Whatever the appeal determines about legality, threatening an independent newsroom’s continued existence over this disputed licensing history is a disproportionate exercise of enforcement power.