(Position Paper issued by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression – AFTE)
3 October 2026
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) monitored with concern a security crackdown resulting in the arrest of six journalists—the entire editorial team of the “Matsadaqsh” platform. Despite continuous efforts by the Journalists Syndicate to locate the detainees, learn their charges, and secure legal access, neither their lawyers nor syndicate representatives have reached them as of this publication. Meanwhile, pro-Ministry of Interior media campaigns intensified, carrying explicit threats against journalists and their syndicate. Security agencies appear to be engaged in an ongoing display of force against journalists and their syndicate. This escalation comes days before the Government Achievements Forum and months ahead of anticipated constitutional amendments to extend the president’s term beyond 2030.
The security crackdown on September 28 and 29, 2026, resulted in the arrest of six journalists: Mohamed Ashraf Abu Amira, Abdullah Qadri, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Mahmoud, and Mohamed Adel. These six journalists constitute the entire Egypt-based editorial team of the “Matsadaqsh” platform. This paper highlights the violations accompanying this crackdown and assesses its impact on independent journalism. It also examines the surrounding political context, focusing on the state of press freedom and syndicate protection for digital media.
- The Arrest of the “Matsadaqsh” Team: What Happened?
On September 30, “Matsadaqsh” announced the arrest of its entire editorial team, consisting of six journalists and fact-checkers. The crackdown began on September 28, when security forces arrested journalists Mohamed Ashraf and Abdullah Qadri. According to the platform’s statement, forces raided their homes and confiscated their personal belongings, including phones and laptops. During the raids, security forces also damaged property and vandalized house stuff. Shortly after, a second statement announced that the Crackdown continued targeting team members, arresting Islam Barakat in Gharbia Governorate and Mohamed Adel in Port Said Governorate. This brought the number of detained editors to four. Finally, “Matsadaqsh” announced in a separate statement the arrest of the last two members, Mohamed Mahmoud and Omar Helal. All six journalists were taken to an unknown location. [1]
“Matsadaqsh” is an independent journalism platform specializing in fact-checking and news verification. It counters fake and misleading information spread intentionally for political agendas or unintentionally to boost online engagement. Launched in April 2018, the platform initially focused on tracking misleading content in Egypt before expanding across the Arab region.[2] Notably, a “Matsadaqsh” editor was detained in August 2023 before security forces later released him. That incident followed the platform’s coverage of a private plane that flew from Egypt and was seized in Zambia.[3]
In general, Egypt witnesses recurring waves of journalist arrests. Even during quiet periods influenced by international circumstances, Egypt remains among the worst countries for press freedom. In its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranked Egypt 169th out of 180 countries. Authorities continue using charges like “spreading false news” and joining a terrorist group against journalists. Journalists face referral to the Supreme State Security Prosecution, prolonged detention, enforced disappearance, and warrantless confiscation of personal devices. The Committee to Protect Journalists described this pattern as a systematic tactic to silence reporters. [4]
- The Gap Between Official Discourse and Practice: Display of Force or Dialogue?
The arrest of the “Matsadaqsh” team reveals a clear gap between official discourse and actual practice. While official rhetoric emphasizes countering misinformation and encouraging media dialogue, actual practices remain hostile toward independent journalism. On September 29, 2026, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met with the Prime Minister, Cabinet, and regional governors. During the meeting, Sisi stressed the importance of dialogue and exchanging viewpoints. He also warned against various tools used to harm the state, including social media platforms. Furthermore, he emphasized the vital role of citizen awareness in confronting these challenges. These statements came just one day after the crackdown on the platform’s team began.
This contradiction is not limited to presidential rhetoric. On August 20, 2026, about five weeks before the arrests, Minister of State for Information Diaa Rashwan addressed journalists and media workers. In what he described as a necessary “heart-to-heart,” he called for advancing the profession and opening space for dialogue and diverse views. He affirmed that “freedom of opinion, expression, and criticism is an inherent right.” He added that the law and its procedures must remain the ultimate sanctuary for protecting rights and duties. [5]
While official discourse presents countering misinformation and protecting freedom of opinion as complementary goals, actual practice has shifted toward arresting journalists working directly in fact-checking, while accusing them of publishing “false and fabricated” news. This incident occurs in a political context marked by escalating calls to amend the constitution or draft a new one. In such moments, platforms that deliver fact-based journalism become increasingly crucial by providing the public with an independent reference point during highly sensitive public debates. Consequently, the crackdown on “Matsadaqsh” raises fears that it is part of a broader trend to restrict the public sphere for critical voices and independent platforms, amid the dominance of state- and sovereign-agency-owned media over the vast majority of media outlets.
- Criminals Without a Crime: How Do We Understand the Ministry of Interior’s Statement?
On October 1, the Egyptian Ministry of Interior issued a statement saying it had been monitoring the fact-checking platform “Matsadaqsh.” The ministry framed this action within its tracking of “Muslim Brotherhood plans to disrupt national stability.” It accused “Matsadaqsh” of being “one of the Brotherhood’s media committees” operated from abroad. The statement claimed “Brotherhood elements” inside Egypt cooperated with the platform to produce and publish “false and fabricated news for financial funding.” Additionally, the ministry highlighted that five of the six arrested journalists were not registered with the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate. It stated that legal procedures had begun against them and that the syndicate head was notified regarding the single registered member. [6]
Security forces raided the journalists’ homes and confiscated electronic devices without showing search or arrest warrants to their families. Their locations of detention remain unknown to their families and lawyers to this day. In the case of journalist Mohamed Ashraf Abu Amira, forces violently raided his home, smashing his parents’ phones and other electronic devices. To date, none of the journalists have appeared before prosecution or investigative authorities. Meanwhile, the head of the Journalists Syndicate made inquiries demanding their whereabouts, filing a report with the Prosecutor General and a complaint to the Minister of Interior. This raises a direct question about the meaning of “legal procedures” and “timely notification” mentioned in the ministry’s statement. Article 54 of the Constitution guarantees notifying detainees of arrest reasons, enabling contact with families and lawyers, and presenting them to investigative authorities within 24 hours. [7]
The Ministry of Interior’s statement went beyond accusing the journalists of publishing false news, pre-judging their affiliation with “Muslim Brotherhood media committees,” their roles, and their funding sources before they even appeared before an investigative authority. Furthermore, labeling “Matsadaqsh” as a platform that “fabricates false and fabricated news” was not accompanied by citing a single specific report as fake or detailing where any misrepresentation occurred, despite this being the core of the accusation. Crucially, the platform’s archive presents a far more complex picture than the ministry’s narrative. Over the years, “Matsadaqsh” published fact-checks and corrections of claims promoted by entities and figures affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood itself. In the hours preceding the arrest of its team, the platform covered topics concerning statements by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, refugee statistics, Public Prosecution appointments, and a public fund embezzlement case.
Furthermore, even if the platform is unlicensed, this does not justify arresting or pre-trial detaining its journalists. Under Article 6 of the Press and Media Regulation Law No. 180 of 2018, establishing and managing websites is subject to licensing requirements, which directly contradicts Article 70 of the Constitution stating that newspapers “shall be issued merely upon notification.” Article 105 of the same law imposes penalties for establishing or operating websites without a license, consisting of financial fines, closure, and confiscation. These sanctions are administrative in nature and do not justify a security raid on an entire editorial team. Nor do they obscure the fundamental questions regarding the legal basis for the arrests and the failure to disclose the detainees’ whereabouts. [8]
Moreover, obtaining a license is not a simple procedure that independent websites can easily fulfill. The law and licensing regulations require establishing an Egyptian legal entity, maintaining a capital of no less than 100,000 Egyptian pounds, paying a 50,000-pound fee, and submitting details on funding sources and editorial structure. In practice, the experiences of outlets like “Mada Masr,” “Al-Manassa,” “Feker Tani,” and “Masr 360” reveal licensing applications left unanswered for years or rejected under vague grounds like “unclear” funding sources. Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR). regularly announces approvals and legalizations for various other websites and applications. The Council does not publish statistics on total applications submitted, rejected, or pending, nor average processing times, making it difficult to verify the fair application of the system. [9]
The Ministry of Interior’s statement also pointed out that the platform is “managed from abroad” and receives “financial funding,” implying that these two factors alone indicate guilt. However, operating a media outlet from outside the country or collaborating with journalists residing in different nations is not a crime under Egyptian law or international standards. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the freedom to seek and impart information regardless of frontiers, and the media landscape regularly includes legitimate organizations operating outside their home countries. Furthermore, “Matsadaqsh” is a public platform launched in 2018 that expanded its operations across several Arab countries, meaning its cross-border nature was never a secret. As for funding, licensing rules themselves regulate financial transparency by requiring disclosure of funding sources, making funding in itself no proof of publishing fabricated news. The statement provided no evidence linking the alleged funding to specific content, relying instead on rhetorical assertions prior to any judicial investigation. [10]
- Enforced Disappearance and Detention Without Legal Guarantees: Where Is the Public Prosecutor?
A long search spanning over 100 hours has continued with no trace of the whereabouts of the editorial team of the “Matsadaqsh” platform, rendering them forcibly disappeared under the law. The platform detailed this in its Facebook statement:[11] “Until Friday evening, the time of publishing this statement, neither the legal team nor the Journalists Syndicate’s lawyers have been able to contact any of the detained editorial staff since last Monday and Tuesday evenings.” According to Article 1 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the convention strictly prohibits subjecting anyone to enforced disappearance. The state may not invoke any exceptional circumstance whatsoever to justify this practice, whether a state of war, threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency. [12]
Article 54 of the Constitution lays down clear guarantees for anyone whose freedom is restricted, describing personal liberty as a natural right, inviolable and unassailable. No person may be arrested, searched, detained, or have their freedom restricted in any manner except by a reasoned judicial order necessitated by an investigation, save for cases of in flagrante delicto. The article obligates authorities to immediately inform the person whose freedom is restricted of the reasons, notify them of their rights in writing, allow them to immediately contact their family or lawyer, and present them before the investigative authority within twenty-four hours.
Contrary to what that article stipulates, the Al-Masry Al-Youm website published a news item on the evening of October 2 stating that the “Matsadaqsh” team had been interrogated on October 1, with the prosecution deciding to remand the journalists in custody for 15 days pending investigation. However, the rapporteur of the Press Freedom Committee at the Journalists Syndicate reported today that the Supreme State Security Prosecution denied the accuracy of this news, confirming that the six journalists have not yet been interrogated.
Some legal estimates suggest that the Ministry of Interior may have relied on provisions of Anti-Terrorism Law No. 94 of 2015 [13] to obtain an order from the Public Prosecution to detain the six journalists pending the completion of gathering evidence, prior to their interrogation before the prosecution, pursuant to Article 40 of the Anti-Terrorism Law. However, this possibility also entails presenting the detainees before the prosecution or competent investigative authority, and the accused retain the right to appeal detention orders under Article 44 of the law.
Furthermore, Article 41 of the same law regulates that judicial enforcement officers must inform anyone detained under Article 40 of the reasons for their detention, granting them the right to contact whomever they see fit among their relatives to inform them of what occurred and to seek legal counsel, without prejudice to the interests of the investigation.
This opacity surrounding the legal status of the six journalists highlights a major crisis within the Public Prosecution, which is obligated to clarify the truth to the public and enable both the defense team and the Journalists Syndicate to locate the journalists, communicate with them, and provide legal assistance. This prompted the Journalists Syndicate to submit two requests today, addressed to the Prosecutor General and the Supreme State Security Prosecution, seeking clarification regarding the decision to remand the “Matsadaqsh” journalists in custody. [14]
The Syndicate pointed out that it has not been notified to date of the colleagues’ location of detention or the date of their interrogation, despite one of them being a Syndicate member and the other five being journalist trainees. The Syndicate had previously sent a letter on September 30 requesting to be informed of the interrogation schedule so that its legal representatives could attend. The Syndicate confirmed that its delegation—comprising Board members Mahmoud Kamel and Eman Ouf, along with four lawyers from the Legal Affairs Department—headed to the Supreme State Security Prosecution this October, but they were not notified of any ongoing interrogations involving the “Matsadaqsh” journalists.
Furthermore, Article 69 of Law No. 76 of 1970 Establishing the Journalists Syndicate obligates the Public Prosecution to notify the Syndicate’s Board or the relevant branch board of any complaint against a journalist related to their journalistic work well in advance of initiating any investigation. If a journalist is accused of a felony or misdemeanor associated with their work, the Syndicate President or branch head is entitled to attend the investigation in person or delegate a representative on their behalf.
- Digital Journalism and the Journalists Syndicate Are Also Under Threat
The arrest of the “Matsadaqsh” team took place at a time when the issue of union protection for digital journalists was witnessing an escalating and ongoing debate within the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate. The Syndicate had recently initiated steps to activate Article 12 of its governing law, aiming to open the “Affiliates Roster” to digital journalists who do not meet the full membership conditions of its primary rosters. This move was intended to extend a degree of union protection to them pending legislative amendments that would permit full membership. Concurrently, digital journalists were publicly demanding their right to syndicate representation, arguing that conditioning syndicate membership on employment with an accredited print newspaper deprives a substantial number of active practitioners from the Syndicate’s protective umbrella.[15]
The arrest of the “Matsadaqsh” journalists carries particular significance in this context. While one of those detained is a member of the Journalists Syndicate, the others work in digital journalism without syndicate membership—reigniting the exact question the Syndicate was actively debating: who qualifies as a journalist entitled to syndicate protection? A central paradox emerges regarding union protection itself. The Ministry of Interior stated in its announcement that it had notified the Head of journalists syndicate regarding the procedures taken against the sole union-member journalist among those arrested. However, this notification failed to translate into actual protection. No one has been able to reach him or ascertain his place of detention—as of the publication of this paper—placing him in the exact same position as his non-synicate colleagues.
Consequently, Syndicate registration altered nothing about his legal status, raising serious questions about the utility of official notification as a legal guarantee when it is not followed by disclosing the location of detention and facilitating the right to defense.
- Conclusion and Recommendations
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) stresses the gravity of arresting the entire editorial team of the “Matsadaqsh” platform, along with the accompanying violations of arrest and detention guarantees and the presumption of innocence, on press freedom and the public’s right to access reliable information. AFTE warns that targeting a platform specialized in fact-checking contradicts the official public discourse regarding combating disinformation, reinforcing a climate of intimidation that drives journalists—especially those working in independent digital journalism—toward self-censorship.
Accordingly, the AFTE concludes with a set of recommendations:
- The Public Prosecution must immediately issue a detailed statement disclosing the location of detention of the “Matsadaqsh” journalists, enabling them to communicate with their families and lawyers, presenting them before the investigative authority, and guaranteeing their physical safety and humane treatment during detention.
- The Public Prosecution must order the immediate and unconditional release of the six journalists, open an independent and transparent investigation into the raids on their homes, the destruction of property, and assault on their contents, and ensure the return of confiscated phones and computers without inspecting their contents except by judicial authorization.
- The Ministry of Interior must cease its media campaigns against the “Matsadaqsh” journalists and adhere to its legal duty of presenting detainees before investigative authorities without attempting to influence judicial decisions, while halting the use of charges such as publishing false news and joining a terrorist group against journalists for their professional work.
- The Journalists Syndicate Board must remain committed to protecting independent digital journalism and extending a syndicate protective umbrella to all digital journalists.
[1] "Security Escalation Against 'Matsadaqsh'.. Arrest of More Journalists Raises Total to 4," Matsadaqsh, September 30, 2026, https://shorter.me/_8Zk9 "Statement from the Matsadaqsh Team for Investigations and Fact-Checking," Matsadaqsh, September 29, 2026, https://shorter.me/yyaIc [2] "About 'Matsadaqsh' Platform," Matsadaqsh, https://matsda2sh.com/page/12074/%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%86%D8%AD%D9%86 [3] "'Matsadaqsh': Arrest of Editorial Team Member Karim Assaad.. and 'Journalists Syndicate' Demands His Release," Manassa, August 20, 2023, https://manassa.news/node/12824 [4] “ Egypt”, Reporters Without Borders, https://rsf.org/en/country/egypt? [5] Eman Ali, "Minister of State for Information: We Counter Rumors and Protect Freedom of Opinion Through Law," Youm7, August 20, 2026, https://shorter.me/4O2Lc [6] "Ministry of Interior Statement," Official Facebook Page of the Ministry of Interior, October 1, 2026, https://shorter.me/p_qh2 [7] Egyptian Constitution, https://shorter.me/nuUQb [8] "Law Regulating Press, Media, and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation No. 180 of 2018," https://manshurat.org/node/31481 [9] Rahma Sami, "Managing an Unlicensed Website: Digital Media Under Political Dominance," Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, July 23, 2026, https://afteegypt.org/research/research-papers/2026/07/23/41594-afteegypt.html [10] Ibid. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, https://www.ohchr.org/ar/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights [11] https://www.facebook.com/matsda2sh/posts/pfbid0HRqCih9Fiat4b8XWZAfxmWNC1UVErzHTKqcdPNNiyLkSHXYMuzS4bQoPB54wit4Xl [12] https://www.ohchr.org/ar/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-protection-all-persons-enforced [13] https://manshurat.org/node/14679 [14] https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/4373814 [15] Mohamed Napoleon and Afaf Abdel Moneim, "Digital Media Journalists Demand Right to Union Registration; El-Balshy: A Legitimate Right and Their Anger Is Justified," Al-Manassa, July 24, 2024, https://manassa.news/news/18634
