Lina Attalah, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Mada Masr, Egypt's leading independent news outlet, is facing a one-year prison sentence in a prosecution that press-freedom groups have condemned as a Kafkaesque miscarriage of justice. The case has drawn condemnation from more than 100 organisations, including Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights.

On 27 October, the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court convicted Attalah of managing an unlicensed website and imposed the maximum penalty: a fine of 3 million Egyptian pounds, about $53,400, along with an order to close Mada Masr's website and confiscate its equipment. Attalah was taken into custody inside the courthouse and held for about seven hours before being released once the fine was paid in full.

It was during the release procedures that she learned of a second, older case against her. In 2024 she had been sentenced in absentia to one year in prison on charges of publishing false news and operating a website without a licence, in a case dating back to February 2024, when prosecutors first summoned her over Mada Masr's coverage. She had never been told. As she later wrote, they had charged her and tried her without informing her, even though she had lived in the country throughout.

Her lawyers challenged the in absentia ruling, and a retrial opened on 11 November before the same judge who issued the October closure order. The hearing was adjourned to 18 November while the court considers the defence's request for the judge's recusal, and Mada Masr's appeal against the closure ruling is scheduled for 25 November. Attalah founded Mada Masr in 2013, and the outlet has been blocked inside Egypt since 2017 despite applying for a licence in 2018 and again in 2020 without receiving a reply. It is one of the country's last remaining independent newsrooms.