Adjournment of Judgment in the Prosecution of “Al Bawaba News” Management in the Minimum Wage Case to 20 April for Completion of Documentation
On 6 April 2026, the North Giza Misdemeanor Court (Labor Circuit) ordered the adjournment of judgment in the prosecution of the legal representative of Al Bawaba News newspaper. The case concerns the failure to implement the statutory minimum wage for the newspaper’s employees, in Misdemeanor Case No. 133 of 2026. The court scheduled the next hearing for 20 April 2026 to allow for the completion of supporting documentation.
The court had previously adjourned the hearing administratively on 23 February due to an error in the transfer of a set of case files to the session clerk. Counsel for the Egyptian Center stated that such procedural errors are routine in court proceedings and do not, in themselves, indicate any intent to obstruct or deliberately delay the proceedings.
The Dokki Labor Office referred a complaint submitted by 275 employees of Al Bawaba News for prosecution after establishing that the company’s management had committed a violation by failing to implement National Council for Wages Decision No. 15 of 2025, which establishes the minimum wage. This constitutes a breach of Article 104 of Law No. 14 of 2025, as a result of the failure to apply the minimum wage to the employees.
The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights has undertaken full legal representation of a number of affected journalists at Al Bawaba News, initiating the necessary judicial and administrative proceedings to protect their financial entitlements and employment rights vis-à-vis the institution’s management.
This followed a meeting between the Center’s lawyers and a group of journalists to examine avenues for legal defense, after the journalists had submitted collective formal complaints to the Dokki Labor Office. These complaints documented incidents of administrative arbitrariness, denial of access to work, subsequent arbitrary dismissal, and the withholding of wages, all in clear violation of the provisions of the Labor Law and constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The origins of this dispute date back to the final quarter of 2025, when management began adopting retaliatory and coercive measures in response to journalists’ demands for the implementation of the minimum wage. Approximately 70 journalists staged a sit-in lasting 56 days at the newspaper’s headquarters on Mossadak Street. During the sit-in, they were subjected to the suspension of basic services, culminating in the forcible dispersal of the protest on the evening of Sunday, 5 January 2026, which compelled them to relocate their sit-in to the headquarters of the Journalists’ Syndicate.
In parallel, management escalated its actions by withholding journalists’ salaries starting in November 2025 and by filing criminal complaints against several of them on charges of “unauthorized assembly.” These complaints also targeted Syndicate Council members Iman Auf and Mahmoud Kamel, following the Syndicate Council’s expression of solidarity—under the leadership of Khaled El-Balshy—with the journalists’ demands.
