The United Nations criticised Tuesday "widening assaults on press freedom" in Egypt, urging authorities to halt their "harassment" of journalists and news outlets. In recent weeks, Egypt has detained the entire staff of fact-checking platform Matsadaash, ordered the closure of independent website Mada Masr and informed its chief Lina Attalah of a one-year prison sentence handed down in absentia. "We are witnessing widening assaults on press freedom by Egyptian authorities, including the targeting, persecution and harassment of independent journalists," UN rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva.

Egypt has long been criticised for its rights record and has for over a decade shuttered nearly all space for dissent. In the case of the Matsadaash staff, Kheetan said the six staff members remained in detention, highlighting that "their lawyers reported that they were subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment and forced to record fabricated confessions". Egyptian authorities also detained Attalah for several hours last month after a court fined her three million Egyptian pounds ($53,500) for operating leading Mada Masr without a licence.