An Egyptian court ordered the closure of one of Egypt’s last independent news outlets Tuesday after convicting its editor-in-chief of operating a website without a license, a major blow to the country’s shrinking press freedom.

The publication, Mada Masr, said its editor-in-chief and founder, Lina Attalah, was released after paying a fine equivalent to about $53,400. She had been detained for seven hours after the verdict, with her whereabouts unknown during that time, according to the outlet.

Mada Masr is one of the few remaining news outlets in Egypt known for investigating corruption, the expanding role of the country’s powerful military, and human rights violations in a country where newspapers and television stations are closely controlled by authorities. Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Human Rights Watch called the prosecution of Attalah an escalation of an “outrageous attack on independent media.”

Attalah’s lead lawyer, Hassan el-Azhary, said Mada Masr planned to appeal the closure order.

“Today’s decision represents a crushing blow to press freedom in Egypt and marks a dark day for independent journalism in the country,” Amnesty International said in a statement. By imposing a large fine, ordering the closure of Mada Masr and the seizure of its property, while “detaining Lina Attalah until payment is made, the Egyptian authorities are sending a clear and ruthless message: critical, independent reporting will not be tolerated.”

While completing her release paperwork, Attalah’s defense team learned that the 44-year-old journalist had been sentenced in absentia in 2024 to one year in prison on charges of spreading false news and operating an unlicensed website — a conviction she intends to appeal, according to Mada Masr’s Facebook page. An appeal hearing is set for Nov 11.

During Tuesday’s session at a Cairo misdemeanor court — the first in a trial announced last week — the judge rejected all of the defense’s procedural requests and ordered its lawyers to immediately give closing arguments, said Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a rights group, who attended the session.

When Attalah’s eight lawyers refused, the judge brought in a court-appointed lawyer none of them knew, over loud objections from the defense and from Attalah herself, Bahgat said. The judge declined to enter her rejection of the lawyer into the record, he said.

State security prosecutors summoned Attalah for questioning last week on charges of publishing false news and operating without a license, then referred her to trial on the latter charge.

Mada Masr says it first applied for a license in 2018 but never received an answer. Authorities have blocked its website inside Egypt since 2017, and the outlet says this is the sixth case brought against it or its journalists in six years.

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Amnesty International and 118 other civil society groups and independent media outlets worldwide called on Egyptian authorities to stop targeting Mada Masr and grant it a license.

Khaled Elbalshy, head of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, the country’s press union, said in a Facebook post that the organization is standing by and supporting Attalah’s case, calling it “a wake-up call” that “runs counter to the demands” for removing press restrictions and media reform.

The case comes amid a broader crackdown on independent media in Egypt. On Tuesday, Egyptian prosecutors extended for another 15 days the pre-trial detention of all six journalists of the Matsadaash investigative platform, according to a statement posted on the platform’s Facebook page.

“Their detention was extended without any new questioning, without being asked to respond to the accusations against them, and without being presented with any evidence to substantiate those allegations,” read the statement.

In late September, Matsadaash reporters were arrested on grounds of joining and financing a terrorist group and spreading false information — a generic list of charges brought against journalists and political critics in recent years.

Egypt ranks 169th among 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index.

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