AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, broadcasting from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, with Nermeen Shaikh in New York.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: [We end] today’s show with breaking news from Egypt. A court in Cairo has ordered the closing of the independent news site Mada Masr. The court also ordered the site’s editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, to be detained until she pays a fine of over $50,000. She was convicted on charges of managing an unlicensed website. After the court’s ruling, Attalah was taken into custody.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the Middle East editor at Drop Site News, previously worked at Mada Masr in Egypt for four years as a journalist and editor.

Sharif, talk about the significance of this breaking news.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, this is a dark day for journalism, not just in Egypt, but in the entire Arab world. Mada Masr is one of the last remaining independent media outlets reporting the news in Egypt. It’s really the flagship independent media outlet in Egypt and a pillar of independent media in the region.

It was founded in 2013 in the midst of Egypt’s revolution and counterrevolution. It’s managed to survive all of these years in one of the most hostile media environments for the media in the world. It’s had its journalists jailed, foreign staff deported. Its website has been blocked for nearly a decade. Their offices were raided by security forces. There are various forms of intimidation, and the threat of imprisonment is always there. Lina herself has been hauled before interrogation in numerous cases over the years.

But what happened today is an unprecedented escalation. This has never happened before. Lina Attalah or Mada Masr have never been referred to trial before. Then, barely a week, you know, after their being referred to trial, they hold a court session today, where Mada Masr's defense lawyers are denied a request to even review the case file, that's given to them in the moment. They’re supposed to review it right there on the spot and present their defense. The court then calls for a recess to deliberate the request, comes back into session, clears the entire courtroom of everyone except for Lina and her lawyer, and then fills it with plainclothes security guards and security officers. And then the court announces it’s rejected all the requests by the defense, including to submit any documentation or hear any witnesses. And the judge then appoints a lawyer for Lina, despite objections, of course. And then, after that, he just summarily reads out the conviction.

And the conviction is fining Lina Attalah herself, as editor-in-chief and co-founder of Mada Masr, to the maximum possible penalty, which is a fine of 3 million Egyptian pounds, which translates to about $50,000, the closure — and the closure of Mada Masr, of the website, and the confiscation of its property. And then security personnel physically surrounded Lina, physically lifted her off the ground and took her out of the courtroom. And she remains in custody now. Her lawyers and her colleagues are scrambling to gather the money to pay the 3 million pounds before the courthouse closes in just a few minutes from the time of this broadcast, so she doesn’t have to spend the night in custody.

But really, you know, the future of Mada and of independent media in Egypt has suffered a very severe blow today. And if there is not a lot of noise made about this by journalists around the world, her colleagues and by the power brokers that this authoritarian Egyptian government relies on to survive, including, of course, the United States — you know, Egypt’s the second-biggest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world — if there isn’t an uproar, then we may lose this crucial media outlet in Egypt and in the region.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sharif, as you mentioned, of course, Mada Masr has come under attack by the state many, many times and in various ways, but this, as you said, is an unprecedented escalation. Why do you think this is happening now?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: It’s difficult to say why now. Let’s remember this is coming less than a month after Egypt authorities arrested an entire newsroom of Matsadaash, six people from — arrested the entire newsroom of Matsadaash, which is six journalists, threw them into prison, interrogated them, abused them and tortured them and forced them to record false confessions, and they remain behind bars. And that was allowed to happen. So, that was also an escalation.

It’s coming after Sisi, the president of Egypt, announced a bombshell last week, where he said, for the first time in Egyptian modern history, that he is not going to — he’s going to step down at the end of his term. Whether that happens in 2030, whether that happens or not, we don’t know. Not that it will be a democratic transition, but the fact that he will hand over power in some way.

It’s also coming as Egypt has, controversially, agreed to send its military to Saudi Arabia to, what they said was, defend against attacks by Ansar Allah and the Houthis in Yemen. It’s coming as Egypt held this big conference, you know, lauding its achievements over the past few years.

But it’s also coming as the world is on fire, and, you know, no one may be paying attention to what’s happening in Egypt and what’s happening to Mada Masr. You have elections around the world that are consequential, that have happened in Brazil and Serbia. You have an election today in Israel. You have the U.S. midterms next week. You have the genocide continuing in Gaza. You have a war raging between Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia and all across the region.

And so, it’s also coming at a time, I think, when the authorities — they’ve been trying to close Mada for many years. When I was working there, they raided our offices and hauled Lina away in front of us, and the managing editor and Rana Mamdouh, a senior reporter, and tried to imprison them. And they had the case ready and everything. And it was only pressure from foreign governments that had them released, and from solidarity within Egypt, as well. But this may be the moment where they can close it down and get away with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, we have to leave it there, but we’ll continue to follow this. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Middle East editor at Drop Site News, previously worked at Mada Masr in Egypt for four years as journalist and editor. To see our interviews with Lina Attalah, go to democracynow.org.

We have to end right now, and I want to thank the amazing student team here at Fort Collins, Colorado State University, at Rocky Mountain Student Media, CTV: Michael Urbaniak and Laila Duran and Hazel Canner and Calvin Masten and Devon Allen and, as well, Josh Middleton and Hana Shiro and Beth Ryan.

I’ll be appearing tonight at Colorado State University’s Democracy Summit with a screening of Steal This Story, Please! at 6:30 at the Lory Student Center Theatre, and it will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director, Tia Lessin, as well as the moderator with us, Colorado State University President Amy Parsons. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.