Mada Masr Journalists Referred to Trial in Egyptian Press Crackdown
Rana Mamdouh, Sara Seif Eddin, Beesan Kassab, and Lina Attalah face charges regarding their reporting at the Egyptian news site Mada Masr. Photo: Mada Masr, via Twitter.
Three journalists from the prominent independent Egyptian online outlet “Mada Masr” have been brought to trial on charges of insulting (pro-government) members of parliament and misusing social media in relation to their investigation of alleged government corruption. The journalists face a maximum sentence of up to two years in prison and fines of up to 300,000 Egyptian pounds (around $10,000) if found guilty, in addition to the further charges levied against their editor. The trial will be held in Mansoura, about three hours from Cairo. On March 16, a coalition of 32 human rights groups including the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), PEN International, POMED, and TIMEP released a joint statement condemning the trial.
In August 2022, Rana Mamdouh, Sara Seif Eddin, and Beesan Kassab shared the byline for an article investigating members of parliament from the pro-government National Future (Mostaqbal Watan) Party for gross financial misconduct. In response, supporters of the MPs and their party submitted hundreds of complaints to public prosecutors across Egypt. On Sept. 7, the three women received a summons to appear at the Cairo Appeals Prosecution the following day, alongside Mada Masr’s Editor-in-Chief, Lina Attalah. In addition to the slander and defamation charges against Mamdouh, Seif Eddin, and Kassab, Attalah was charged with “publishing false news intended to disturb the public peace and cause damage to the public interest.” They were released on bail on the evening of their first court appearance.
Mada Masr publishes a few articles each week in English but offers substantial coverage in Arabic on topics ranging from politics to culture, including television reviews, recipes, and opinion pieces. It began publishing in June 2013, comprised of a consortium of journalists pushed out of other Egyptian media outlets amid a conservative backlash in the early days of the Sisi administration. While Egypt was ranked 158 out of 180 countries for press freedom that year by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), it has since fallen to 168th place. According to RSF, 25 journalists are currently behind bars in Egypt.
A political cartoon published in Mada Masr in reference to the 2011 Tahrir Square protests of the Arab Spring, which revitalized civil society and led to the founding of many new outlets, including Mada Masr, but also led to a significant conservative political backlash. Photo: Mada Masr, “أنريل”.
This trial is not the only legal challenge Mada Masr has faced. Lina Attalah and Rana Mamdouh were both detained in a raid on Mada Masr’s newsroom offices by security forces in Nov. 2019. Mada Masr’s website has been blocked in Egypt since 2017. When a 2018 media law required all news websites to apply for a license, Mada Masr’s license application was ignored for four years and then summarily rejected. In fact, the site’s journalists were only informed of the rejection when, in Sept. 2022, Lina Attalah was charged with operating a website without a license. Readers generally access the outlet’s work through VPNs or social media, opening them up to prosecution under Egypt’s often politically biased “fake news” laws.
On March 6, the Committee to Protect Journalists released a statement calling on Egyptian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally drop the charges [against the journalists]... and cease pursuing the unjust case against them,” adding “[t]his judicial harassment is a clear attack on journalists and the independent press in Egypt.”