Egyptian Court Orders News Site Closed as Critics Warn of a Crackdown

An Egyptian court ordered the closure on Tuesday of a prominent independent news website, Mada Masr, and detained its editor in chief, the outlet said, sparking an outcry from rights groups of an intensifying media crackdown. The editor, Lina Attalah, who is also a co-founder of Mada Masr, was fined 3 million Egyptian pounds, around $53,400 dollars, on charges of managing an unlicensed website, the outlet said in a statement. It added that Ms. Attalah was then carried out of the courthouse by security personnel. ... Mada Masr, founded in 2013, two years after the Arab Spring protests that toppled the then-president Hosni Mubarak, has received international acclaim as one of the few outlets to publish politically independent journalism from Egypt, where most media is closely affiliated with or owned by the state. Based in Cairo, Mada Masr’s website has been blocked in Egypt since 2017. The New York Times South Africa Deploys 500 Soldiers to Quell Anti-Immigration Violence Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, deployed more than 500 soldiers to the port city of Durban on Tuesday, a week after a foreign national was brutally beaten to death there during an anti-immigrant protest. Durban has been plagued by months of anti-immigrant violence, with protesters setting cars ablaze, looting foreign-owned shops and terrorizing refugees seeking help at immigration offices. The latest wave of violence was sparked by the nation’s top court striking down a procedural barrier that had kept undocumented migrants from claiming asylum if certain conditions are not met. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Ramaphosa attributed the violence in Durban to misinformation about the court ruling. ... The soldiers are scheduled to support the South African police under “Operation Prosper,” a joint security initiative announced by the president earlier this year. The operation is aimed at combating serious crime, restoring law and order and stabilizing volatile areas in South Africa. The New York Times

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL