Media Committee weighs freedom of information bill, skirts Matsadaash crisis
A government-drafted freedom of information bill is likely to be referred to the House of Representatives in conjunction with the first Annual Conference of Egyptian Media next December, Minister of State for Media Diaa Rashwan suggested during his meeting on Tuesday with the Media Development Committee, according to a committee member who attended the meeting.
Rashwan met Tuesday with the Media Development Committee at the ministry’s new headquarters in the New Administrative Capital. Formed in October last year by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to establish a comprehensive roadmap for developing Egyptian media, the committee submitted its report last February to the prime minister for presentation to President El-Sisi.
The presidency referred the committee’s report to the ministry to review its findings and draft an executive plan with a timeline, funding, and responsible bodies, the minister said.
Rashwan added, according to a ministry statement issued after the meeting, that this “requires dialogue with the members of this committee to study the priorities that can be built upon from the provisions of this report, in preparation for the first Annual Conference of Egyptian Media that the President directed to be held next December”.
The source, who spoke to Al Manassa on condition of anonymity, stated that Rashwan clarified that the presidency had comments on the committee’s report, but he did not elaborate on their nature, merely saying they concerned the Minister of State for Media.
According to the statement, an extensive discussion took place among all attendees regarding priorities to address the challenges facing press and media in Egypt.
The source said that Rashwan asked the committee to identify urgent priorities, whose implementation is “feasible.” The committee authorized the minister to select priorities likely to gain executive approval ahead of their adoption at the media conference, establishing a one-year implementation timeline to be reviewed at the December 2027 conference.
The committee, chaired by Khaled Abdel Aziz, head of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, comprised 66 members, including the heads of the National Media Authority and the National Press Authority, the heads of the Journalists Syndicate and the Media Syndicate, editors-in-chief, journalists, and writers, alongside experts, academics, private sector representatives, content creators, digital media professionals, and United Media Services.
The ministry statement pointed to discussions regarding “accelerating the passing of a freedom of information law to ensure a swift and adequate flow of information from state bodies and society to the media.”
“We were told in the meeting that the government’s current priority is passing the freedom of information law. The minister said that there is a draft ready with the government that is likely to be referred to parliament in conjunction with the media conference,” the source said.
In its report submitted to the presidency last February, the committee attached a proposed draft freedom of information law prepared by the Journalists Syndicate at its sixth conference in late 2024, along with another bill prohibiting imprisonment in publication offenses.
Over past years, several proposed draft freedom of information laws have been submitted, a constitutional mandate that has been stalled since the adoption of the Egyptian Constitution in 2014. These include a proposal adopted by MP Maha Abdel Nasser in August; a draft submitted by former MP Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat in 2016, and another presented by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation in 2017 that contained tighter restrictions on information sharing than the syndicate’s draft.
Article 68 of the Constitution stipulates that “information, data, statistics, and official documents are the property of the People,” and that disclosing them from various sources is a right guaranteed by the state to every citizen, with the law regulating rules for obtaining, making available, keeping confidential, and appealing refusals to grant them.
According to the source, the minister did not share details of the government draft with committee members. “We did not see the details of the government project, and we do not know to what extent it differs from the draft prepared by the Journalists Syndicate and adopted by us in the committee. However, when the government draft is announced and presented to the syndicate, as required by the Constitution, controversial articles between the two laws can be negotiated,” the source said.
The meeting touched upon the proposed draft law banning imprisonment in publication cases, to which the minister raised no preliminary objection, though he spoke of a longer legal path, according to the source.
Meanwhile, journalist Essam Kamel, editor-in-chief of theVeto website who attended the meeting, explained to Al Manassa that “the crisis lies in the existence of provisions in other laws that allow imprisonment in publication cases under other descriptions, such as incitement or false news, which requires amendments across several laws, including the Penal Code and others.”
Kamel said the minister will meet with the chair of the House of Representatives’ Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee to review the articles that should be amended to end imprisonment in publication cases, studying them before heading to parliament.
The meeting did not address the detention of six journalists representing the editorial team of the independent news platform Matsadaash, according to two sources who spoke to Al Manassa. However, the anonymous source explained that the matter “was raised indirectly in several speeches discussing the risks of the continued detention of journalists, including the speech by the syndicate head, under the rationale that discussing general governing rules is always preferable to being absorbed in the details of specific cases.”
Demands for protecting journalists and issuing a freedom of information law returned to the forefront during a meeting organized by the Rights and Freedoms Secretariat of the executive council of the Conservative Party on Monday.
Security forces arrested the editorial team of the Matsadaash platform on Sept. 28 and 29, holding them in enforced disappearance for five days before bringing them before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which ordered their pre-trial detention for 15 days pending investigation on charges of “spreading false news and joining a terrorist group,” amid reports of them being subjected to torture that the Ministry of Interior denied without announcing any investigation into them.
Egypt ranks 169th out of 180 countries in the 2026 Press Freedom Index. In October 2025, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms documented the detention of 26 journalists and media workers in pre-trial detention or on trial. In March 2024, the Journalists Syndicate also criticized the ongoing blocking of news websites, chief among them Al Manassa, which has been blocked 13 times, most recently in July 2022.
In a related context, the meeting touched upon complaints by journalists regarding ministers, governors, and executive officials refusing to answer their calls or provide them with information necessary for their work, under the pretext of needing a “permit” from the Minister of State for Media, according to the source.
While the government statement mentioned discussions on developing government communications at all levels and enhancing its role in meeting the needs of media of all types, the source noted that Rashwan responded to those complaints by emphasizing that this permit is organizational, aimed at defining the responsibilities of each minister or executive body, and is issued within minutes “over the phone” upon request by the relevant minister if they wish to speak to the media. He stressed to attendees that El-Sisi directed the government to respond to journalists’ inquiries, denying that the Ministry of State for Media exercises any supervisory or censorship role in this regard.