Egypt needs Matsda2sh more than ever now "Updated"

In what can be considered a rare act of civil action in Egypt nowadays, several members of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate declared an open-ended sit-in at the syndicate’s headquarters in Cairo on Saturday, demanding the release of the Matsda2sh journalists from custody.

It is a mild escalation following the participation of dozens of journalists in a symbolic sit-in inside the Journalists Syndicate to call for the release of the six Matsda2sh journalists — Abdallah Qadry, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emaira, Islam Barakat, Mohamed Mahmoud, Mohamed Adel and Omar Helal — whose whereabouts remain unknown after security forces launched an arrest campaign targeting the entire newsroom of the independent fact-checking platform last week.

In what I consider an unprecedented move, Egyptian security forces arrested the entire six-member newsroom of the popular fact-checking news website Matsda2sh over Sunday and Monday.

Updated on 4/10/2026 @10:20 PM : Three journalists appeared in front of the High State Security Prosecution in Cairo on Sunday.

Matsda2sh — literally “Do not believe” — is one of Egypt’s pioneering fact-checking news services.

So far, the detained journalists have not been referred to the prosecution, according to the Journalists Syndicate.

It is unprecedented for the authorities to arrest the entire newsroom of a news website.

The Ministry of Interior accused the seven journalists, as usual, of being Muslim Brotherhood members and spreading false news through their website, which it said was owned by allegedly “fugitive” Muslim Brotherhood figure Abdel Rahman Mansour. 

It also accused them of falsely presenting themselves as journalists because all but one are not officially members of the Journalists Syndicate.

Ironically, their website is a fact-checking platform that has spent years debunking false news and statements from both the Muslim Brotherhood and the regime’s media, using solid sources.

As for Mansour, who is currently in the United States, he is neither a Muslim Brotherhood member nor, as far as I know, a “fugitive”. There are no arrest warrants or cases against him in Egypt, as far as I know. According to Matsda2sh, he has even renewed his passport and checked his legal records in Egypt, which showed no outstanding cases.

It seems to me that someone has not forgotten that Mansour was among the original administrators of the “Kolena Khaled Said” Facebook pages.

As for membership of the Journalists Syndicate, around 90 percent of journalists working for Egyptian news websites are not syndicate members because of the syndicate’s outdated bylaws, which traditionally restricted membership to those working in the printed press.

Ironically, the current syndicate chief, Khaled El-Balshy, is himself one of the pioneers of online journalism. For the record, he has promised to find a solution to this problem. But I still do not understand why the bylaws have not simply been amended to reflect the reality of journalism today.

For the record, too, El-Balshy, unlike the Ministry of Interior, recognises that the young men of Matsda2sh are journalists who deserve the syndicate’s support because of their work and their archives.

I do not need to repeat the obvious: Egypt needs an independent Matsda2sh more than ever right now — even if its job is to fact-check and refute statements made by government officials.

It would be a lie to claim that Egyptians simply believe or even follow the official media when it comes to news. Many instead turn to other sources, including dubious ones, and that is precisely why Matsda2sh’s role is important.

Since the Six-Day War and the fiasco of Egypt’s official media coverage at the time, Egyptians have largely been sceptical of official media.

I cannot count how many times Matsda2sh has actually saved the government from huge rumours by quickly checking and debunking them.

The existence of websites and Facebook pages like Matsda2sh is, in itself, proof that serious investigative journalism still exists in Egypt — and also, to some extent, a sign that there is still space for freedom of expression.

What is particularly frustrating is that Matsda2sh and a handful of other Egyptian news websites are currently doing what journalists are supposed to do, while the majority of the media landscape is unfortunately divided between PR journalism and tabloid journalism.

That is yet another reason why Egypt needs Matsda2sh now more than ever.