"A Crackdown on All Independent Voices": Egypt Shutters News Outlets, Prosecutes Editor Lina Attalah

Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of Egypt’s leading independent news outlet Mada Masr, faces a criminal trial this week on charges of “spreading false information,” just two weeks after being convicted of operating an unlicensed website and fined more than $50,000. A judge also ordered the publication to be shut down. The cases are part of a broader crackdown on independent Egyptian media under the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, including the arrest of the entire newsroom of another outlet, _ Matsadaash_. More than 100 organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, have condemned the arrests and prosecutions and called on Egyptian authorities to drop the charges.

“Putting us in jail is not going to solve the country’s problems,” Attalah told Democracy Now! in an interview Friday. “We need to be operating as journalists in our newsrooms as opposed to being defendants in courtrooms.”

Attalah says she and Mada Masr will appeal the ruling to shut them down, hoping to “use this crisis” as a way to fight censorship in Egypt and expand the space for independent reporting.