Egypt: The authorities order the closure of the opposition website Mada Messer and arrest its director, Lina Atallah, in court.
Egyptian security forces arrested the prominent journalist Lina Atallah, the editor-in-chief of the independent news website Mada Masser, from the court headquarters on Tuesday, after her first court session, after the court imposed a fine of three million pounds (about 54,000 US dollars) on the charge of running a news website without a license, with an order to block the website and its property. This ruling comes in the context of an unprecedented escalation against independent news platforms in Egypt, amid widespread domestic and international criticism of violations of press freedom.