A Cairo court on Wednesday postponed the retrial of the editor-in-chief of independent news outlet Mada Masr until next week to consider a defence request seeking the recusal of the judge, the outlet said.
The prosecution of Lina Attalah, one of Egypt's most prominent independent journalists, has drawn criticism from the United Nations, media watchdogs and rights groups, who say it could deal a final blow to one of the last remaining independent voices in Egypt's tightly controlled media landscape.
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.
Her lawyer, Hassan El-Azhary, said the defence would submit the grounds for their recusal request ahead of the next hearing, scheduled for November 18, arguing that the judge "had previously formed a conviction against the defendant".
The case is being heard by Judge Mohamed Mubarak, who on October 27 fined Attalah 3 million Egyptian pounds (about $56,000) and ordered the closure of Mada Masr in a separate case involving similar allegations.
While attending that hearing, Attalah said she was informed for the first time that she had already been sentenced in absentia in 2024 in the current case.
A hearing on Attalah's appeal against the October 27 ruling is set for November 25.
Mada Masr, which survived more than a decade of restrictions on the press in Egypt, said it had applied for a licence several times, but its applications have gone unanswered.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the postponement offered "a glimmer of hope" after what it called Attalah's "shameful and unacceptable" 2024 conviction in absentia, and urged Egyptian courts to end what it described as "baseless" proceedings.
The UN on Tuesday criticised what it described as Egypt's "widening assaults on press freedom", including the "targeting, prosecution and harassment of independent journalists".
Attalah's prosecution "raises fresh concerns regarding due process and fair trial", said Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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 over eight years that 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.
Rights groups including Amnesty International have described the current crackdown as "unprecedented" after authorities arrested the entire newsroom of fact-checking platform Matsadaash in September.
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 also 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.
Despite such criticism, Egypt's Western allies have generally shown limited willingness to publicly pressure Cairo over its rights record, citing its role in regional security and diplomacy.
Last month, the United States waived human rights conditions attached to $320 million in military aid to Egypt.
Asked on Tuesday about the decision and concerns over press freedom, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Egypt "a reliable and good defence partner".
"Does not mean you agree on all things the other government does," Rubio said. "They have complied on a lot of other things."
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