Egyptian authorities must stop harassing Lina Attalah

18 May 2020 / Nawaat

Lina Attalah, Mada Masr’s editor in chief, was arrested on Sunday May 17, 2020, outside the Tora Prison complex in Cairo. Law enforcement officials informed her colleagues that she will be held overnight and will appear before the prosecutor tomorrow morning. Attalah was arrested while she was interviewing Laila Soueif, the mother of imprisoned activist Alaa Abd El Fattah, who had been on a hunger strike for 35 days. She was released on bail later in the evening.

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Crédit : Mada Masr/DR

The Independent Media Network in the Arab World demands an immediate end to the campaign of harassment and intimidation against Attalah and Mada Masr.

For years, Mada Masr, Egypt’s last independent media, had been the target of continuous harassment by the authorities. On November 23, Mada Masr’s editor Shady Zalat was arrested  from his home. The following day, plainclothes security personnel raided Mada Masr’s offices for several hours, seized equipment and arrested three members of the editorial team, including Attalah. All three, as well as Zalat, were released several hours later without any explanation.

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