Egyptian journalist Lina Attalah faces prison as trial sparks international outcry

Prominent Egyptian journalist Lina Attalah, the head of independent media outlet Mada Masr, is set to appear in a criminal court on Wednesday, facing possible prison time in a trial that has drawn international outcry.

Attalah is being retried after she was handed a one-year prison sentence in absentia in 2024, without her knowledge, for operating a news website without a licence and "publishing false news" -- a charge commonly levelled against journalists and dissidents in Egypt.

The United Nations on Tuesday criticised what it called Egypt's "widening assaults on press freedom", including the "targeting, prosecution and harassment of independent journalists".

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Atallah was only informed of the in absentia sentence last month, upon her release from detention after a rushed misdemeanour trial in a separate case with similar charges where she was fined three million Egyptian pounds (around $56,000).

Attalah's prosecution "raises fresh concerns regarding due process and fair trial", said the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Thameen Al-Kheetan.

In the misdemeanour trial, the court also ordered the shutdown of Mada Masr, Egypt's preeminent independent media outlet, which has survived a more than decade-long crackdown on the free press.

Cairo has long been criticised for its rights record and has, over the past decade, shut down nearly all space for dissent.

In an interview with AFP ahead of her trial, Attalah said Egypt was "trying to limit the already-limited space that there is for independent media", leaving only "silence".

She said Mada Masr had filed repeated licensing applications for eight years, which went unanswered for years.

"We're not against regulation; we have a problem when the licensing becomes a tool of control, a tool of exclusion," she said.

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Rights groups including Amnesty International have described the current crackdown as "unprecedented" after authorities arrested the entire newsroom of factchecking platform Matsadaash in September.

The six journalists remain in pretrial detention, which has been renewed several times, and have reportedly been subjected to torture and "forced to record fabricated confessions", according to the UN's rights commissioner, who called for their release.

The crackdown has been criticised by US lawmakers, the European Union, and 135 rights groups and media organisations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Human Rights Watch.

"Egyptian authorities must immediately end this crackdown, reverse (Mada Masr's) shutdown and uphold constitutional protections for press freedom," said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah.

"We call on the EU to make these clear demands as part of its political dialogue with Egypt."