Six people working for Matsada2sh, an Egyptian fact-checking and investigative platform, were detained on 28 and 29 September, according to the platform and its lawyers.
On Thursday 1 October, the Ministry of Interior confirmed the arrests and accused the platform of links to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt designated a terrorist organisation in 2013.
As of Sunday 4 October, no charges had been publicly announced and the prosecution had not issued a public statement on the case.
Founded in April 2018, Matsada2sh describes itself as an independent platform whose mission is to verify Egyptian and Arab content and produce open-source investigations.
The Interior Ministry’s statement
In its statement on Thursday morning, the ministry said it had been monitoring Matsada2sh, which it described as “unlicensed and managed from abroad”.
It accused the page of spreading false news and distorting facts.
The ministry said the platform was one of the Brotherhood’s media committees and was run from abroad by co-founder Abdelrahman Mansour, whom it described as a fugitive Brotherhood member. It said people inside Egypt prepared fabricated material and sent it to him to publish, in return for funding from abroad.
According to the statement, six members of this committee were apprehended and legal measures were taken. The ministry said one of the six is a member of the Journalists Syndicate and the others are not, and that the Syndicate’s head had been informed. The statement did not name the six, and it did not specify any charges.
The platform’s response
Matsada2sh rejected the accusations the same day. In a statement on its social media accounts, it said it had for years published corrections of false claims spread by figures and outlets affiliated with the Brotherhood.
The platform also said its team members are Egyptians living in Egypt who are paid salaries through Egyptian banks, and that Mansour left Egypt legally and faces no pending case.
“The claims are false,” Mansour told the Associated Press. He said that when two of the platform’s editors were arrested in 2023, State Security investigators found no Brotherhood affiliation, and that the two were released after 36 hours without charge.
The Journalists Syndicate and the prosecution
On Wednesday 30 September, the Journalists Syndicate filed a complaint with the Interior Ministry and a report to the Prosecutor General calling for the six to be released.
After the ministry’s statement on Thursday, Syndicate board members Mahmoud Kamel and Eman Awf went with four Syndicate lawyers to the Supreme State Security Prosecution in New Cairo to attend any questioning. The Syndicate said they stayed all day and were not told of an investigation, a case number or charges.
A report on Al-Masry Al-Youm’s website, dated 1 October, said the Supreme State Security Prosecution had ordered the six detained for 15 days pending investigation. On Saturday, the Syndicate sent two requests to the Prosecutor General’s office and the Supreme State Security Prosecution asking them to clarify whether the report was accurate, Masrawy reported. In those requests, the Syndicate said one of the six is a member and the other five are trainee journalists, and that it had not been told where they are held or when they would be questioned.
Syndicate head Khaled El-Balshy said on Saturday that the prosecution had told the Syndicate’s lawyer the six had not yet been questioned. The prosecution has not published a statement on the case.
Also on Saturday, dozens of journalists gathered at the Syndicate’s headquarters in Cairo to call for the six to be released, responding to a call from Matsada2sh.
The Syndicate said its general assembly would remain in permanent session, with an open sit-in, until its board meets on Monday 5 October to decide its next step.
On television
On Friday 2 October, Amr Adeeb’s programme Al-Hekaya on MBC Masr carried a phone interview with writer Abdel Rahim Ali, head of a Paris-based Middle East studies centre. Ali played audio recordings he said were of Mansour, including one he dated to March 2011 in which Mansour speaks with Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater, Cairo24 reported.
Ali said he holds around 500 calls relating to Mansour. He also said Matsada2sh is linked to a New York-based non-profit, Open Transformation Lab, which he said Mansour heads. Ali did not say how the recordings were obtained, and Egyptian Streets has not been able to verify them.
During the segment, Adeeb asked why the platform had become an issue now, after eight years of operating. Ali replied that it was damaging the country’s reputation.
On Sada El-Balad’s Haqaeq wa Asrar, presenter Mostafa Bakry said the prosecution had issued the arrest orders on the basis of accusations and investigations, and that the case was now before the investigating authorities.
He said on Friday that the outcome of the investigations was not yet clear and should not be pre-empted. Bakry added that freedom of opinion and expression is guaranteed by the law and the constitution, and that the case should not be reduced to a question of publishing freedom.
Reaction and background
More than 80 regional and international organisations, including Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, have called for the six to be released.
It is not the first time a Matsada2sh journalist has been detained. In August 2023, Matsada2sh editor Karim Asaad was released a day after his arrest.
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