A misdemeanour court in Cairo has acquitted nine journalists and two senior members of the journalists’ syndicate of defaming the chairman of Al-Bawaba News and his daughter, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, a legal rights group has said.
The Qasr Al-Nil Misdemeanor Court handed down the verdict on Sunday, clearing the 11 defendants of charges brought by Abdelrahim Ali, the newspaper’s chairman, and Dalia Ali, its editor. Those acquitted include nine journalists from Al-Bawaba News, along with Mahmoud Kamel and Eman Ouf, both board members of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, a statement by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) said.
According to ECESR, the court also rejected a compensation claim filed by the newspaper’s legal representative against the journalists. The claim had sought to compel the defendants to pay temporary civil damages exceeding 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,900) to the chairman and his daughter.
The case, registered as No. 1084 of 2026, originated from a report filed by Ali and his daughter against the journalists and the two board members following a protest held on the steps of the Journalists Syndicate. The protest was organized to demand that the newspaper’s management pay overdue salaries and implement the national minimum wage.
At the time, Khaled Elbalshy, the head of the Journalists Syndicate, stated that the legal complaint added “a new crime—filing reports against those demanding their rights and unionists performing their roles—to the crimes of withholding wages, disrupting work by cutting the internet for protesters, and refusing to pay the minimum wage, in violation of the journalistic code of ethics and professional norms.”
In this context, Mahmoud Kamel, the Syndicate’s vice president and head of its Freedoms Committee, told Al Manassa that “the management of Al-Bawaba News has committed every possible professional sin,” describing the verdict as “new evidence of the failure of attempts to terrorize journalists and strip them of their rights.”
Kamel, who was among the 11 acquitted, added that management’s refusal to implement the minimum wage, followed by the suspension of salary payments after the sit-in was announced, reflected a disregard for professional and humanitarian considerations in handling the crisis.
Syndicate board member Eman Ouf told Al Manassa she was not surprised by the acquittal. She noted that from the first day, the prosecution did not even question them regarding the charge of protesting without a permit—which had been included in the original complaint—as authorities were convinced the event was a legitimate internal union activity.
The Al-Bawaba News crisis began on Nov. 17, 2025, when the newspaper’s journalists announced an open-ended sit-in to demand the implementation of the minimum wage. Last January, journalists accused management of cutting electricity, water, and internet services and forcibly dispersing the sit-in. Abdelrahim Ali denied those accusations at the time.
In a parallel legal track, the North Giza Labor Misdemeanor Court is still considering a case involving an accusation against the newspaper’s legal representative for failing to implement the minimum wage for employees. The court recently adjourned the ruling in that case to tomorrow’s session, Monday, April 20, after the employees’ complaint was referred to trial.
