10 June 2020
Over 100 organisations have signed a call for the EU to take action to end SLAPPs - Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation - which are being used against civic activists and journalists across the continent.
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"The EU must end gag lawsuits used to silence individuals and organisations that hold those in positions of power to account. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are lawsuits brought forward by powerful actors (e.g. companies, public officials in their private capacity, high profile persons) to harass and silence those speaking out in the public interest. Typical victims are those with a watchdog role, for instance: journalists, activists, informal associations, academics, trade unions, media organisations and civil society organisations.
Recent examples of SLAPPs include PayPal suing SumOfUs for a peaceful protest outside PayPals German headquarters; co-owners of Maltas Satabank suing blogger Manuel Delia for a blog post denouncing money laundering at Satabank; and Bollore Group suing Sherpa and ReAct in France to stop them from reporting human rights abuses in Cameroon. In Italy more than 6,000 or two-thirds of defamation lawsuits filed against journalists and media outlets annually are dismissed as meritless by a judge. When Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was brutally killed, there were 47 SLAPPs pending against her."
EU: Ending Gag Lawsuits in Europe - Protecting Democracy and Fundamental Rights (ECPMF, link)
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