Egypt has reportedly imposed a six-month ban on the website of Mada Masr, one of its few remaining independent media outlets, after a report that relied on interviews with anonymous political and diplomatic sources to claim that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime was preparing to accept Palestinian refugees fleeing Israel’s Gaza offensive.

The Mada Masr report on October 11 had also suggested that the Israeli offensive in Gaza was aimed at mass displacement of Palestinians. An Israeli intelligence plan, subsequently acknowledged by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office as a “concept paper”, pointed to similar objectives in Gaza.

While Netanyahu had dismissed the plan as “hypothetical”, there have been reports that his government was lobbying with European governments to convince Egypt to take in Palestinians. Amid local apprehensions that Israel wants to purge Gaza of Arab ethnicity, a large number of Palestinians continue to defy Israeli evacuation orders. 

Meanwhile, four days after the Mada Masr report, the outlet was accused of publishing fabricated news based on “fictitious sources” and operating without a license. 

On the day Egyptian authorities announced action against it, the news organisation issued a statement on Facebook, stating that “a number of our readers sent us feedback about a report we published” and that it had changed the headline as the original “leaves room for interpretations that diverge from its content”. The new headline on the English website states: “Egypt’s difficult questions in the Gaza war”.

And since then, it has launched a series exploring Palestinian displacement to Egypt.

Egypt’s ‘staged protests’ and rejection of plan

The report had ostensibly left Sisi’s government red-faced while it reportedly tried to curb grassroots pro-Palestine protests and carry out its own demonstrations – to portray any public participation as popular support for the military regime. 

Meanwhile, a day after Israel acknowledged the “concept paper”, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the government fully rejected such a plan. And days later, Sisi, who is seen as an ally of Israel in return for the latter’s support for his regime’s stability, said that Gazans could be, in fact, moved to the Israeli Negev desert instead of Sinai “until Israel is capable of defeating Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Afterwards, Palestinians could return to their homeland.”

Egypt is set to vote for a new government in around two months with increasing inflation and a debt crisis as the primary issues. While it’s been a major negotiator in the Israel-Palestine conflict before, its position has been challenged by Gulf states and Iran.

Portal still accessible outside Egypt

While the news outfit’s portal is still accessible outside Egypt, the Committee to Protect Journalists has urged Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation to revoke its decision. Inside Egypt, it can be accessed with a VPN.

The council, which had initiated a probe against the outlet in October over “inflammatory reports that undermine Egypt’s national security”, is now preparing to hear the response of Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah and suggest the case to the prosecutor-general, according to CPJ.

Mada Masr joins a list of over 500 websites, including those belonging to news outlets and rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch, which have been banned in Egypt over the last few years.

The news outlet was founded in 2013 by a small team of journalists, just days before Sisi’s military coup ousted the country’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi. 

“By targeting the Mada Masr news website for prosecution while continuing to block it, Egyptian authorities are seeking to muzzle one of the few remaining independent outlets, furthering their relentless campaign to eliminate independent journalism,” said Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher of the Human Rights Watch.

A series of similar charges against a small outlet

It’s not the first time Mada Masr has faced such action in Egypt, where, according to Reporters Without Borders, nearly the entire media ecosystem is under direct control of the government, secret services, or business leaders with political influence. The country is also one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists, exploiting laws to crack down on the press. It ranked 168 on RSF’s annual world press freedom index rankings this year.

When Mada Masr was accused of operating without a licence last year, Lina Attalah told DW that “I’ve been submitting requests for licensing since 2018 but have been constantly ignored by the relevant authorities”. 

Access to the website was blocked in 2017 too when the government accused it and other portals of fake news and supporting terror. In 2019, security forces raided the outlet’s office and detained several staff members, including Lina Attalah, after a report on Sisi’s eldest son claimed his position in the regime was being downgraded. 

Attalah was also arrested in 2020 outside a Cairo prison where she had gone to interview the mother of jailed activist Abdel-Fattah, an icon of Egypt’s 2011 revolution and a high-profile Arab dissident. 

Last year, Mada Masr faced hundreds of complaints by political workers over a report that claimed that senior members of the pro-Sisi Mostaqbal Watan Party were found involved in “grave financial violations”. Over 500 complaints were reportedly clutched together in the case, and three women journalists were put on trial for “insulting” MPs and “misusing” social media. Several rights groups had condemned the action. The trial is yet to conclude.