After reviewing the Public Prosecution’s statement on the arrests of six Matsadaash journalists following raids on their homes, and the violations attributed to security agencies, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) issued has the following response:

1. The Public Prosecution’s statement noted that the six journalists were questioned in the presence of their lawyers and a representative of the Journalists Syndicate. Yet it omitted the fact that none appeared before prosecutors until five days after their enforced disappearance, during which they were unlawfully denied contact with their families or lawyers. Over those five days, their families and lawyers submitted 18 complaints to the Public Prosecution.

2. The statement omitted any mention of the investigating authorities’ order to hold the six journalists in “custody” in the days following their arrest and enforced disappearance under an exceptional provision of the 2015 Counterterrorism Law. This provision permits such custody only “when there is a risk of a terrorist crime and a necessity to confront that risk.” Since the prosecution’s accusations, based on National Security Agency investigations, allege only that the six journalists published rumors or “false” reports, the Public Prosecution should have identified the imminent terrorist threat that required denying them their right to appear before a judicial authority within 24 hours of arrest. Documented violations were committed against them during their detention.

3. The statement also omitted the detaining authorities’ violation of rights guaranteed under the Counterterrorism Law itself: anyone held under this provision must immediately be informed of the reasons for their detention and must “have the right to contact a family member of their choosing to inform them of what has happened, and to seek the assistance of a lawyer.” These violations were documented in the records of the six journalists’ interrogations.

4. The statement contained ample evidence establishing beyond doubt that the six journalists were detained solely for carrying out journalistic work protected by the Constitution and the law. This included “highlighting only shortcomings in state institutions, downplaying the roles and performance of their officials, escalating grievances affecting particular groups, highlighting and exaggerating obstacles relating to the country’s internal affairs, and publicizing shortcomings across various sectors and officials’ failure to address them.”

5. Despite repeatedly referring to accusations that the six journalists published rumors and “false” news, the statement did not identify a single news item or report published by the platform that could be described as false, fabricated or even based on inaccurate information or data. This is consistent with the lengthy interrogations conducted by the Supreme State Security Prosecution over three days, totaling nearly 30 hours for each journalist. None was confronted with a single news item or report that could be described as false or fabricated.

6. Most strikingly, the statement recast every procedure demonstrating the legitimacy and legality of the six journalists’ work as evidence of their involvement in a conspiracy against the country. Years ago, the company that owns the website, and whose identity is known to state agencies, signed contracts with all its journalists in Egypt. The journalists submitted copies of those contracts to Egyptian banks and received monthly payments for their work in their bank accounts, as the Public Prosecution’s own statement acknowledged.
   Yet the statement reframed these ordinary, lawful arrangements as accusations of receiving “monthly funding in foreign currencies,” falsely portraying legitimate activities as criminal. The same applies to the six journalists’ membership in online groups used to coordinate their daily workflow and their exchange of emails about their lawful journalistic work, which the statement turned into evidence accusing them of “terrorism.”

7. Regarding the serious allegations made by some of the six journalists before prosecutors that they had been subjected to various forms of torture, ill-treatment, threats, and physical and psychological coercion, the statement merely noted that “the Public Prosecution established that none had any visible injuries.” Neither the journalists nor their lawyers had alleged that they had visible injuries in the first place.
   The statement noted that three journalists had been referred to the Forensic Medicine Authority. It omitted, however, that prosecutors refused to hear their testimony and question them as victims in the torture complaints they filed against the officers responsible for their detention at National Security Agency facilities in several governorates. Nor did the statement mention summoning or hearing testimony from the officers named in the complaints, those responsible for their detention or witnesses to the incidents.

8. The statement omitted the journalists’ testimony during questioning that they had been unlawfully coerced into recording fabricated, false confessions to manufacture evidence for later use against them.

9. Finally, media statements published by the Public Prosecution on social media have no legal evidentiary value. They merely summarize the position of the prosecuting authority, which has not been presented to any court and none of whose assertions has been proven. The statement therefore serves only to express the Supreme State Security Prosecution’s view and summarize the National Security Agency investigations on which it relied. The Public Prosecution acknowledged this in the statement’s closing reference to “ongoing investigations.”

10. EIPR reiterates its call for the immediate release of the six journalists, the closure of the case and the dropping of all charges against them. It also calls for an investigation into the violations reported against them and for those responsible to be held accountable.