I scroll through social media, a bad morning habit I still have not managed to shake, when a headline hits me: “Two members of the editorial team at the fact-checking platform Mtsada2sh have been arrested.”

I expected the crisis to be resolved quickly, as it had been three years earlier, when a member of the newsroom was detained for 48 hours before the Journalists’ Syndicate intervened and secured his release.

But the news kept coming. Two more journalists were arrested. By the end of the day, the headline had changed: the platform’s entire editorial team, six journalists in total, had been detained.

Just like that. No explanation.

Some official somewhere woke up and decided to put an entire newsroom behind bars.

I am afraid, for no reason other than the fact that I practice journalism in Egypt, the one profession where doing your job properly can land you in prison. That is what happened to our colleagues Mohamed Ashraf Abu Omeira, Abdullah Qadri, Islam Barakat, Omar Hilal, Mohamed Mahmoud and Mohamed Adel, members of the Mtsada2sh newsroom.

Seconds after reading the news, I come across another story: an Egyptian actress’s religion, published by a media institution once known for serious journalism. Then comes a video of a fellow journalist taking part in a new media experiment, a kind of reality show, in which she complains about another colleague while sitting in the media organization’s cafeteria.

The video itself does not shock me. The founder of the experiment said it plainly: “I’m here to ruin journalism.”

But what journalism is left for him to ruin?

In 2015, I wrote under a pseudonym for the first time. I had already been practicing journalism for years, but until then, I had never needed to use a false name, or even publish anonymously.

But we are living in the “New Republic,” where press freedom is little more than empty rhetoric, repeated at public conferences and proclaimed by the president in meetings with foreign editors, only to remain words intended for media consumption.

The reality is that, as journalists, we live on a knife’s edge, torn between being real journalists and risking imprisonment or exile for reasons known only to God and whoever decides to have us arrested, or becoming mere performers whose names are pasted onto statements “sent from a Samsung device.” Or worse, becoming hyenas feeding on scandals and trends to attract readers who are no longer drawn to identical, standardized news bulletins.

The choice is simple, but bitter:

Do I lose my freedom, or do I lose my profession?

The first investigation I published under a pseudonym had nothing to do with politics or the ruling regime. It was about a misguided decision by the health minister to withhold vital information from people receiving a healthcare service, a decision that resulted in dozens suffering complications.

Although it remains one of the best pieces of journalism I have ever written, I cannot include it in my portfolio. When I published it, I could not put my name on it for fear of being arrested or branded as a member of a terrorist group seeking to destabilize the country.

Since Mtsada2sh was launched in 2018 by our late colleague Mohamed Abul Gheit, who, coincidentally, was himself one of the Egyptian journalists forced into exile, the platform has consistently worked to correct false reports and misleading statements, while publishing in-depth investigations exposing corruption wherever it occurs.

It has not distinguished between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood: it fact-checks statements from both sides. It exposes corruption on both fronts, as independent journalism should.

Yet none of this has stopped hundreds of pro-government accounts from seizing on the news of the Mtsada2sh newsroom’s arrest to brand the platform as a misleading Muslim Brotherhood outlet.

The irony is that the state itself constantly warns of the dangers of rumors and misinformation, while stressing the need to build public awareness. In July 2026, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for greater space for “objective media dialogue” that accommodates “different points of view,” and directed that an annual meeting be held to review the state of Egyptian media and discuss its challenges and opportunities.

In 2025, the presidency spoke of “upholding freedom of expression” and “embracing all national viewpoints,” directed that data and information be made available to the media, and reaffirmed the principle of “different points of view.”

As journalists, we ask for nothing more than to understand what these words actually mean once they reach the newsroom.

What are the limits of the “other point of view”? Who decides when a question becomes dangerous? And how much room does a journalist have to operate when they know their job is not simply to reproduce what institutions tell them?

Article 65 of the Egyptian Constitution itself states that “freedom of thought and opinion is guaranteed,” and that every person has the right to express their opinion verbally, in writing, through images, or by any other means of expression and publication.

But journalists do not live inside constitutional texts alone. They operate inside newsrooms and institutions, within a market shaped by laws, syndicates, security agencies, sources, editors, algorithms, and an audience that wants information now, often before journalists have even finished verifying it. And perhaps this is the real battle we are losing, day after day.

Just hours before the Mtsada2sh newsroom was arrested, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi addressed a meeting attended by the prime minister, cabinet members, governors, senior military and police officials, and other state officials. He spoke about the challenges facing the state and the need to secure the “domestic front” amid what he described as multiple methods used to harm the state and exert pressure on it.

Subsequent coverage of the meeting highlighted presidential warnings about chaos on social media, attempts to cast doubt on the country’s achievements, and spreading frustration. The Ministry of Endowments even selected protecting the nation and promoting public awareness as the theme of the following Friday sermon. Meanwhile, the government is preparing for a major conference in the second half of October to present its achievements and respond to questions from the public.

Then, within hours, the entire Mtsada2sh editorial team was in detention.

I have no evidence of a direct connection between the two events, and I do not want to manufacture a link I cannot prove. But the timing alone raises a question I cannot ignore: What happens when calls to confront “chaos” and “doubt” online create an environment in which journalists whose very job is to verify information find themselves pushed out of the picture?

Mtsada2sh was not a platform built to spread frustration, circulate rumors, or fabricate news. Its core mission, as the platform itself describes it, is to produce journalistic content, verify information, and publish it according to professional standards. Yet its newsroom has become the news.

Here lies the paradox that, for us as journalists, is even more painful than the arrests themselves: the state says the problem is the spread of misinformation, while a platform that built its very existence around confronting misinformation has seen its entire team detained, with no clear announcement, as of the time of writing, explaining the reasons for the arrests or their legal basis.

If the state wants to combat rumors, then it naturally needs journalism that verifies, questions, and scrutinizes. And if it wants to convince people of its achievements, it also needs journalists who can examine those achievements, compare them against the figures, and question officials about the money spent and the results delivered. These are precisely the questions that the October conference is supposed to provide a space to discuss.

So how can journalists be asked to confront “doubt” on the one hand, while being left afraid that simply doing their job of verification could put them at risk on the other?

At this point, the issue is no longer about Mtsada2sh alone. The question becomes: What kind of journalism do we want?

The president was not the only official to speak about the media and its crisis before the Mtsada2sh team was arrested. At the end of August, the media minister, who asked journalists to address him as “Your Excellency, colleague,” said that ensuring the flow of official information to media outlets would leave less room for those spreading rumors, and that providing the official account of events, decisions, and achievements would help narrow the gap created by a lack of information.

The statement acknowledges that the crisis facing Egyptian media is not merely a crisis of content, but also one of access to information and space for dialogue. Yet one question remains: What does it mean to invite journalists to discuss the state of their profession and speak freely about its problems, while the very act of asking questions becomes fraught with fear?

Perhaps no clearer answer exists than the one now offered by the Mtsada2sh newsroom itself: a platform whose core mission is to verify information and counter misinformation suddenly becomes a story that requires journalists to ask: What happened? Where are the journalists? And why were they arrested?

This is where talk of “access to information” becomes more than just an item on the agenda of a conference or meeting. Journalism cannot investigate information it cannot access. It cannot counter rumors when official information arrives too late. And it cannot practice “different points of view” when the fear of asking a question outweighs the space allowed for an answer.

Hours after news of the arrests broke, I discussed it with a colleague. He told me he hoped our colleagues would be released, even if the price was freezing Mtsada2sh until the government’s conference on its achievements was over, or even shutting the platform down for good. There is no point, he said, in journalists losing years of their lives and becoming the story instead of writing it.

When I decided to write this article, fear left me with two choices: Do I write about my colleagues and journalism and risk my freedom? Or do I remain silent and leave my profession itself at risk?

In the end, I decided to write without my name, because the profession I am trying to defend from danger has itself become the danger.