Tomorrow .. Trial of Nine Al-Bawaba News Journalists and Two Members of the Journalists’ Syndicate Council on Defamation Charges Filed by the Newspaper’s Owner

The Qasr El-Nil Misdemeanor Court is scheduled to hold, tomorrow, Sunday, 22 February 2026, the first hearing in the trial of Iman Awf and Mahmoud Kamel, members of the Journalists’ Syndicate Council, along with nine journalists from Al-Bawaba News, in Case No. 1084 of 2026, registered under Administrative Case No. 9590 of 2025, Qasr El-Nil Police Department.

The defendants are charged with demonstrating without a permit and defamation of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the newspaper, in connection with a protest organized by journalists to demand their lawful and statutory right to the application of the minimum wage to their salaries.

On 5 January 2026, the Central Cairo Prosecution summoned the journalists and the two Syndicate Council members for questioning in relation to the complaint filed by the newspaper’s owner. During the investigation, the defendants asserted that no legal or material evidence existed establishing the offense of defamation.

The protest was attended by a number of journalists and the two Council members, who chanted slogans expressing solidarity and affirming their minimum-wage demands, including: “A minimum wage is a minimum for life,” and “The minimum wage is mandated by law.”

The dispute dates back to the final quarter of 2025, when the management of Al-Bawaba News began implementing arbitrary and retaliatory measures in response to journalists’ demands. This led approximately 70 journalists to stage a sit-in lasting 56 days at the newspaper’s headquarters on Mossadeq Street. During the sit-in, journalists were subjected to the cutoff of essential services, before circumstances compelled them to relocate the sit-in to the premises of the Journalists’ Syndicate, following its forcible dispersal on 5 January 2026.

Concurrently, the newspaper’s management withheld salary payments beginning in November 2025 and filed police complaints accusing several journalists of “unauthorized demonstration.” These complaints also included Iman Awf and Mahmoud Kamel, in response to the Syndicate Council’s public support for the journalists’ demands.

Separately, the Dokki Labor Office referred Labor Complaint No. 275, filed by employees of the newspaper, to trial after establishing that the newspaper’s management had violated National Wages Council Decision No. 15 of 2025, which sets the statutory minimum wage, in contravention of Article 104 of Law No. 14 of 2025, by failing to apply the minimum wage to its employees. The North Giza Misdemeanor Court (Labor Circuit) has scheduled 23 February 2026 for the trial of the legal representative of Al-Bawaba News in this matter.

Lawyers from the Egyptian Center met with a group of affected journalists to assess legal defense strategies, following the submission of collective formal complaints to the Labor Office documenting administrative intransigence, unlawful prevention from work, the resulting arbitrary dismissal, and the withholding of wages, all in violation of the Labor Law and constitutional protections. The Egyptian Center has assumed full legal representation, undertaking all judicial and administrative procedures necessary to safeguard the journalists’ financial and employment rights against the newspaper’s management.

In this context, a lawyer from the Egyptian Center stated that the accusations brought against the journalists amount to nothing more than unfounded allegations, advanced by representatives of the newspaper’s management in an attempt to circumvent the employees’ legitimate demands for enforcement of the minimum wage and to evade their binding legal obligations.

He further emphasized that the defense team will systematically refute these allegations before the competent courts, relying on the established facts and the investigation records. He also noted that the Public Prosecution had previously concluded that no criminal offense of unauthorized demonstration was established, and had determined that there were no grounds for instituting criminal proceedings on this charge, given that the protest took place within the premises of a professional syndicate rather than a public space, and therefore constituted lawful and peaceful expression of opinion protected by law.