The Licence Is Pending. The Closure Is Not.

Mada Masr says its latest application for a publishing licence has been pending since June 2023. An Egyptian court has now ordered the independent news outlet closed for operating without one.

The paperwork may be taking its time. The punishment has excellent turnaround.

Al Jazeera reports that the New Cairo Misdemeanour Court fined editor-in-chief Lina Attalah three million Egyptian pounds, about $53,400, and ordered the outlet’s equipment confiscated. Attalah was detained after Tuesday’s ruling and released several hours later once the fine was paid.

This is not merely a story about a newsroom neglecting to fill out a form. Mada Masr says it applied in 2018 and 2020 without receiving a reply, then learned of a rejection during a previous case. An administrative court upheld the refusal in 2023 over missing proof of trademark registration; its lawyer said he had submitted that certificate. Another application has remained pending since that June.

A licensing system can become a remarkably efficient barrier when permission must arrive from one end of government before punishment arrives from the other. The applicant waits. The enforcement mechanism does not seem to share that scheduling difficulty.

The account of the hearing is more troubling still. Mada Masr says the court refused requests to review the case file, provide further evidence and call witnesses. It says a court-appointed lawyer was installed despite Attalah’s objections and the presence of eight lawyers of her own. Those are the outlet’s allegations about the proceedings, not independently established findings in this article. Al Jazeera reported no immediate official comment on the verdict.

Eight lawyers apparently did not settle the question of whether the defendant had enough representation. Perhaps representation only counts after the court chooses the representative. That would certainly simplify the exchange of views.

During her release, Attalah also learned of a separate one-year sentence imposed in her absence in 2024. Her lawyers have challenged it, and a retrial hearing is scheduled for November 11. The new closure order and that earlier sentence are separate matters; combining them into one neat outrage would make the story easier and less accurate.

The journalists’ syndicate says it will pursue an appeal of Tuesday’s ruling. Mada Masr has been blocked inside Egypt since 2017. The outlet’s continued attempt to work within the licensing system has not protected it from the system’s penalties.

Equipment can be confiscated. A newsroom can be ordered shut. None of that demonstrates that its reporting was false.

The state has answered the question of whether the outlet may keep publishing with much greater urgency than the application asking permission to publish.