هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
October opened with two major political developments in Egypt: the arrest of the editorial team of the fact-checking platform Matsda2sh, and the “October Movement”, a strike organised by detainees demanding their release and an end to prolonged pretrial detention. The strike came amid parliament’s approval of a one-year delay in implementing the new Criminal Procedure Law.
Coverage by Egypt’s state media and pro-government outlets used similar language to describe both events. It adhered to the official narrative and excluded alternative perspectives.
In this report, Noon Post examines that coverage through statements by the Interior Ministry and the Public Prosecution, and the way they were reproduced by Egyptian news websites and newspapers loyal to the regime and owned by it through United Media Services. It also examines episodes of Ahmed Moussa’s programme Ala Mas’ouliyati on Sada El Balad.
The channel is owned by businessman Mohamed Abou El Enein, which would in theory make it independent. Since 2013, however, it has devoted the largest share of its airtime to Moussa’s programme. He is considered one of the most prominent media figures loyal to the Sisi regime.
Two cases, one narrative
On 28 September, a security campaign against Matsda2sh began, ending with the arrest of six Egyptian journalists — its entire editorial team. The six were forcibly disappeared for five days before appearing before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which charged them with joining a terrorist group, financing and spreading false news.
Before the journalists appeared before prosecutors, the Interior Ministry issued a statement announcing their arrest. Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that an order had been issued to detain them for 15 days, which the prosecution denied. After the journalists appeared before it, however, the prosecution did issue a 15-day detention order. During questioning, the journalists disclosed that they had been tortured and physically assaulted to force them to record confessions.
During the same period, detainees in several Egyptian prisons announced a hunger strike under the name “October Movement”. They said they would refuse to accept any “ta’yin” — prison food — on 7, 8 and 9 October, demanding an end to prolonged pretrial detention.
The Interior Ministry denied that any strike had taken place. But detainees’ families, posting through the “Enough Prisons” page, said their relatives had faced punitive measures, including bans on exercise, transfers to distant prisons, physical assaults and exposure to tear gas, particularly in 10th of Ramadan Prison.
“Everyone is Brotherhood”: framing coverage through accusation
Egyptian journalist Diana El-Dabaa’s appearance on the BBC, where she defended the Matsda2sh journalists against the accusations they faced, prompted a wave of personal attacks and questions about her political affiliations.
One allegation was that she had deliberately shared the biography of her grandfather, Rev. Gabriel, the first president of the Evangelical Theological Seminary, to rebut accusations that she belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Although this allegation was merely part of an online campaign against her, it illustrates the approach pro-government media have taken since the Matsda2sh journalists were arrested. They were accused of belonging to the Brotherhood, as was the platform’s founder, Abdel Rahman Mansour, a political activist during the revolutionary period. Old videos of Brotherhood leaders were even used to reinforce the claim that Mansour — described in the Interior Ministry’s statement as a “fugitive Brotherhood member” — belonged to the group.
In a statement on 7 October, the Public Prosecution said one defendant had admitted that he and the other defendants had joined the group’s “media committee”, and that the page was overseen by a member who had fled abroad. It added that an examination of one defendant’s phone had revealed closed groups on an encrypted app and email correspondence from that member.
These statements by the Interior Ministry and the prosecution contain accusations, not judicial rulings or proof of a crime. Yet pro-government outlets publish them as established fact. On his programme, for example, Moussa said the Interior Ministry had “dealt a blow to the group backed by all the evidence”. He also said the page remained active because it was run from abroad. The same framing appeared in the state-owned Al-Ahram, as well as Al-Dostour, Youm7 and Al-Watan.
The danger of this narrative is its resemblance to the McCarthy era in the US: an accusation of Brotherhood affiliation overrides every other aspect of a person’s identity. Everything the accused says is assumed to be a lie except a confession, which may itself have been extracted under duress.
In a statement responding to the Journalists Syndicate on 5 October, the Interior Ministry described the Matsda2sh journalists as “Brotherhood elements”. It mentioned only in passing that one was a syndicate member — meaning that, by law, he was a “journalist”.
That professional identity was effectively denied to him and his five colleagues. The latter also practise journalism and are considered “trainees” under the law and, in the current syndicate chief’s definition, working journalists who are not yet covered by the union. In statements by the Interior Ministry and the prosecution, and in state media coverage, however, they are described as elements, defendants and members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s media committee. Defending them as journalists therefore becomes tantamount to defending the organisation.
The same approach is evident in coverage of the prison strike. Interior Ministry statements ignore the strikers’ demands and focus instead on “Muslim Brotherhood pages abroad” that “claimed” a strike was taking place. Simply being an opponent is enough for a person’s words to be attributed to the organisation. Any news about prisons can thus be ascribed to the group before it is even examined.
When criticism becomes “incitement”
Throughout its eight years of operation, Matsda2sh has focused on fact-checking. In pro-government media coverage, however, that role is turned on its head. Moussa says the platform aims to “inflame citizens against officials” and spread rumours.
In another episode, Moussa said the platform had monitored several health projects and that the health minister had responded to its lies — an accusation for which no evidence was presented. Across the attacks published by various newspapers, none refuted the platform’s reporting over eight years or established that even one report was fabricated, false or misleading.
This recasts professional criticism — or, more plainly, the core journalistic work of scrutinising statements and reports for accuracy — as “incitement” deserving punishment. “Spreading false news” becomes a ready-made charge against any journalist, with no need to examine the published material.
Concentrated ownership and expanding censorship
United Media Services was established in 2016 to replace the Egyptian Media Group, which had been owned by Egyptian businessman Ahmed Abou Hashima. Although officially a private company, everyone in Egyptian media knows it is owned by Egyptian intelligence. Its first head was Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Shaaban.
Over the past 10 years, United Media Services has taken control of most news and general-interest websites and channels in Egypt. It owns the newspapers Youm7, Al-Watan, Al-Dostour, Sawt Al-Umma, Al-Osboa, Amwal Al Ghad, Mobtada and Dot Masr, as well as two English-language publications.
Newspapers outside its control include Al-Bawaba, owned by Abdel Rahim Ali, a regime loyalist and media figure known for personal leaks; Al-Shorouk, whose editor-in-chief, Emad El-Din Hussein, is a member of parliament on the lists of the pro-regime National Front Party; and Al-Masry Al-Youm. Others include several weekly papers that appear irregularly, the Wafd Party newspaper and independent websites, most notably Al-Manassa, Fekra Tani and Mada Masr.
Al-Manassa and Mada Masr have previously been raided, and their officials have been investigated on licensing-related charges. There are also the websites Cairo 24 and Telegraph. Although neither is directly affiliated with the state, their founders came from circles associated with state journalism.
To complete this control over the media, the 2018 media regulation law established the Supreme Council for Media Regulation and gave it broad powers to block news websites. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression says it has documented the blocking of at least 549 websites in Egypt since May 2017. Some remain blocked, while others have become accessible again.
These include news and media websites. The organisation has also documented the economic consequences for some outlets, including cuts to journalistic staff and the suspension of operations altogether. Together, these pressures create an uneven playing field between large media groups and independent websites.
Blocking does more than prevent the public from accessing particular content. It also undermines an outlet’s ability to attract readers and advertising and retain its journalists. Control over the media thus rests on a combination of economic influence, regulation and censorship, rather than solely on direct orders to close a newspaper or channel.
Official sources monopolise the narrative
Khaled El-Balshy, head of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, believes concentrated media ownership undermines journalistic pluralism by limiting opportunities to express different views and allowing a single narrative to dominate. Diverse ownership allows different parts of society to be represented, he added. Progress towards a free media requires coverage that reflects the breadth of Egyptian society rather than a narrow range of voices.
El-Balshy said diversity in ownership and coverage would help curb media campaigns and attempts to steer the public towards a particular position. It would also create room for different views and more objective discussion. A free media, he stressed, requires space for everyone to express themselves and participate.
Recent coverage of Matsda2sh and the “October Movement” clearly illustrates his point. Reports on both generally consist of a security statement or a prosecution statement, followed by commentary that simply restates it.
The Journalists Syndicate announced that it had filed a complaint with the prosecutor general about the Matsda2sh journalists’ testimony that they had been tortured. The Interior Ministry responded with a report, published by all outlets loyal to the regime, saying a security source had denied the claims.
The prosecution then announced that medical examinations of three defendants had found no evidence that they had been subjected to violence. Media coverage, meanwhile, excluded voices representing the detained journalists, their families or their lawyers.
Although the denial was attributed to an unnamed security source, the Interior Ministry posted it on its own page. This combination of anonymity and official status gives the statement institutional authority without accountability.
The same happened with the “October Movement”. Statements by detainees’ families about the strike, pretrial detention and the detainees’ demands were all ignored. Only the Interior Ministry’s denial that a strike had taken place appeared.
Ruqayya Hamed, a pseudonym for the wife of a detainee in 10th of Ramadan Prison, says she and other detainees’ families do not rely on the local press. When publicising the strike, the “Enough Prisons” campaign or other campaigns, they send their statements to journalists at independent outlets and publish them only on social media. They do not expect the Egyptian press to carry any related statement.
In coverage of the movement, too, the word “prison” is absent from Interior Ministry statements and pro-state reporting. Instead, they use terms such as “rehabilitation and correction centers”, “inmates” and “modern penal policy”. This reflects the growing power of terminology.
Adopting this vocabulary settles the debate in advance: someone held in a “correction center” is not on hunger strike over “prolonged pretrial detention”, but is asking for “privileges”. That was precisely what a security source said about a previous strike, claiming that the group fabricates such allegations to secure privileges for its members outside the legal framework. Demands for release and an end to pretrial detention are thus reduced to requests for perks.
Newsrooms wait for instructions
“The instructions in the company are to stick only to official statements, and not to publish any statements related to the Interior Ministry or the rehabilitation sector except through their official source. In important cases, such as ‘Matsda2sh,’ instructions are issued directly to editors-in-chief on how to handle them, whether by specifying the scenario to be used or by ignoring them.”
This is how Abeer Nader describes the way United Media Services directs coverage across its outlets and limits editors-in-chief’s authority. Nader, whose name is a pseudonym, worked as a journalist at one of those outlets before moving into the company’s management.
Nader says the company has a unit that monitors everything published by its outlets to ensure it complies with instructions. It also holds regular meetings with editorial managers from different outlets to discuss those instructions.
Nadim Abdel Qader, also a pseudonym, heads the editing and review unit — known in Egyptian newspapers as the “desk” — at an Egyptian website. He agrees with Nader’s account. He describes his role as reviewing published content and its adherence to editorial policy. The editor-in-chief also alerts him to publishing restrictions and topics that are off-limits.
Security coverage is handled exclusively by reporters accredited to the ministry; no one else is allowed to report on it. No news — including fuel price rises or controversial decisions — is covered without first consulting the editor responsible.
Matsda2sh and the “October Movement” may seem like very different cases: journalists arrested for doing their work, and detainees fighting for their rights. What connects them is the way both are covered under Samsung media.