Arabic version: تأجيل إعادة محاكمة الصحفية المصرية لينا عطا الله

According to BBC News, a Cairo criminal court has postponed the retrial of Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief and co-founder of independent news outlet Mada Masr, until 18 November. Defence lawyers requested a new judge at the opening hearing, saying the judge had already formed a view against her, Mada Masr cited lawyer Hassan al-Azhar as saying.

Attalah is being retried over a one-year prison sentence issued in absentia in 2024 for spreading false news and operating a website without a licence. She said she was in Egypt at the time the ruling was issued. Last month, a separate court convicted her of running a website without a licence, fined her 3 million Egyptian pounds and ordered Mada Masr to close. Her appeal in that case is scheduled for 25 November.

The UN has warned of widening assaults on press freedom by Egyptian authorities, including the targeting and harassment of independent journalists. Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for six journalists from fact-checking platform Matsda2sh to be released and for charges against them to be dropped. They were arrested in September and later charged with joining the Muslim Brotherhood and financing terrorism.

Attalah said the recent crackdown was intended to send a chilling message to the few newsrooms still operating independently. Mada Masr, founded 13 years ago, has remained an investigative news source in Egypt, though its website has only been viewable from outside the country since 2017. Reporters Without Borders ranked Egypt 169th of 180 countries for press freedom in its 2026 analysis and said at least 26 journalists arrested in recent years remain detained.