Mada journalists charged with spreading false news, insulting Nation’s Future Party, chief editor faces charge of operating unlicensed news site

Mada Masr Editor-in-Chief Lina Attalah, journalists Rana Mamdouh, Sara Seif Eddin and Beesan Kassab were released on bail on Wednesday evening after interrogation sessions at the Cairo Appeals Prosecution.

All four were questioned individually and concurrently, said lawyers acting in their defense.

In Wednesday’s session, Attalah, Mamdouh, Seif Eddin and Kassab were charged with slander and defamation of Nation’s Future Party members, using social media to harass the party members, and publishing false news intended to disturb the public peace and cause damage to the public interest. 

Attalah also faces charges of operating a website without a license. 

Mada Masr has attempted since 2018 to obtain licensing under the new law regulating the press, submitting paperwork on multiple occasions, making official inquiries into the status of the application and attempting to contact officials at the press regulatory authority. Until now, Mada Masr has received no response regarding its legal status. According to the law, the Supreme Media Regulatory Council must notify the sites or entities that are refused a license or have not completed the necessary documents.

For more on our decision to apply for a license under the new media law, you can read our statement published in 2018 soon after we submitted our paperwork for the first time.

Bail for Attalah was set at LE20,000, and at LE5,000 for the three other journalists.

The four Mada Masr staff members appeared before the prosecution on Wednesday, one day after receiving a summons following dozens of complaints submitted by MPs and members of the Nation’s Future Party to prosecuting authorities across the country mentioning Mamdouh, Seif Eddin and Kassab, as well as Mada’s chief executive, whose name was not noted. The complaints accused them of publishing false news, among other charges. 

Lawyers Hassan al-Azhary, Nasser Amin and Journalists Syndicate member Mohamed Saad Abdel Hafiz attended the interrogation session with Attalah, while Ahmed Osman, Tarek Khater, Fatma Serag and a syndicate lawyer attended the session with Mamdouh. Lawyers Rajia Amran and Ahmed Abdel Naby and syndicate member Doaa al-Nagar with Kassab, and lawyers Hoda Nasrallah, Nada Saad Eddin and a syndicate lawyer attended with Seif Eddin.

The legal complaints filed against the three journalists came as their names were in the byline of the August 31 edition of Mada Masr’s Nashra, which contained news that oversight bodies had implicated senior members of Nation’s Future – a party with close links to the corridors of power – in “grave financial violations” expected to result in their removal from the political scene. 

The party denied the news “in its entirety” and threatened legal action, describing the target of publication as “shaking the security and stability of the country,” without referring to specific details of the coverage.