Chief Editor of Egypt’s only independent media arrested

Cairo, 17 May (efe-epa).- The editor-in-chief of Egypt’s only independent media was arrested on Sunday outside a prison while interviewing the mother of a prominent imprisoned activist who went on a hunger strike, the Mada Masr online newspaper said.

Lina Atallah was arrested outside the Tora prison, on the outskirts of Cairo, a little before 1 pm GMT while interviewing Laila Soueif, Mada Masr announced.

Laila is the mother of prominent blogger Alaa Abdul-Fattah, one of the famous faces of the 2011 uprising.

A Tora prison official notified the attorney of Mada Masr that Atallah has been taken to a prosecutor’s office, without providing more details, according to the digital outlet.

In November, Atallah was shortly apprehended alongside two other Mada Masr journalists in a raid of their headquarters in Cairo by the security forces.

Then they were moved to the prosecutor’s office and later released.

After that raid, the online newspaper resumed activity albeit with more caution.

Over the past couple of months, it has reported on controversial topics that usually other Egyptian media do not cover.

Atallah was reporting on a hunger strike Abdul-Fattah began over a month ago to denounce the conditions in the Egyptian prisons amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Visits to prisoners have been suspended as part of the measures aimed at countering the virus.