Joint Statement: CFWIJ Joins The Call To Demand EU Anti-SLAPP Law
Location: Brussels
Date: February 2, 2022
The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) joined over 170 civil society groups and over 200,000 citizens to demand effective legal protection against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation [SLAPPs. The petition, with 213,432 signatories, was handed over to the Vice President of the European Commission Vĕra Jourová in Brussels on February 1, 2022, by representatives of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) and two individuals affected by SLAPPs.
The petition, launched in July 2021 by the organisations Rainforest Rescue and the Munich Environmental Institute, who are themselves facing SLAPPs, calls on the European Commission to propose an Anti-SLAPP Directive that effectively protects all those affected by vexatious litigation across the EU.
SLAPPs are abusive lawsuits filed with the purpose of shutting down acts of public participation, including public interest journalism, peaceful protest or boycotts, advocacy or whistleblowing. Wealthy and powerful individuals abuse the law to force their critics into time-consuming and costly legal proceedings aimed at silencing them.
The CFWIJ has followed SLAPPs against women journalists extensively in recent years, specially in view of the case of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who faced multiple SLAPPs before she was murdered. The brutal killing of Daphne in Malta served as a turning point in devising an anti-SLAPP directive, said speakers at the European Parliament in June, 2021.
Daphne, who was assassinated by a powerful car bomb outside her Bidnjia home on October 16, 2017, was facing over 40 different SLAPPs at the time of her death, which have now been inherited by her family.
In recent years we have seen an increasing number of SLAPPs targeting women journalists. In this year alone, the CFWIJ has followed at least two such vicious lawsuits against women journalists in different parts of the world.
In January, we reported on the SLAPP suit against award-winning journalist Carole Cadawalladr, who is based in the United Kingdom. Carole, who has won a series of prestigious prizes for her reportage, stood trial for the SLAPP brought against her on the basis of a 15-minute video from 2019, still available on TED platforms, in which she made a passing remark regarding multimillionaire Arron Banks’s donation to the Brexit campaign. While speaking about the impact of Facebook (now Meta) on the electoral process, Carole stated that the £8 million donation made by Banks to Farage's Brexit campaign in 2016 breached electoral and data laws. In a subsequent tweet, she also asserted that Banks has not been entirely truthful about his relationship with the Russian government in the past. The journalist maintains that the statement was made in public interest. After two years, the case concluded with a five-day trial in January 2022. However, the verdict is yet to be announced.
Banks's decision to sue a freelance journalist and employ a SLAPP instead of TED platforms, where the Carole lecture remains published, is evidently a multimillionaire's attempt to financially cripple a journalist in order to discourage the press from speaking about him. This will not be the first time libel laws have been weaponized against journalists to intimidate them into silence not the last.
On February 1, 2022, Canan Kaya, editor in chief of online news portal Medya Koridor, was hit with a SLAPP suit by Turkish media conglomerate Demirören Group. The media giant has sought 20 thousand Turkish Liras in damages from Canan, claiming that the journalist damaged the reputation of the group and violated personala rights. Canan faces the abusive SLAPP after Medya Koridor published a report on defaulted loans of the Demirören Group.
Targeting of individual journalists by powerful actors, who have more financial and legal resources available to them, is evident in both cases. The CFWIJ vehemently objects to laws being weaponized to gag journalists and prevent them from doing their jobs. Journalists should be able to speak truth to power without fear of SLAPPs. To this end, the CFWIJ joined the petition to demand strong EU anti-SLAPP legislation. Read the petition submitted by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) to the EU vice president.
Read the joint statement:
On Tuesday, representatives of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), together with two individuals affected by Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), handed over 200.000 signatures to Věra Jourová, Vice-President and Commissioner for Values and Transparency of the European Commission. The petition, launched in July 2021 by the organisations Rainforest Rescue and the Munich Environmental Institute, who are themselves facing SLAPPs, calls on the European Commission to propose an Anti-SLAPP Directive that effectively protects all those affected by vexatious litigation across the EU.
SLAPP cases on the rise across Europe
The number of people and organisations across the EU being targeted by so-called SLAPP lawsuits is constantly increasing. SLAPPs are abusive lawsuits filed with the purpose of shutting down acts of public participation, including public interest journalism, peaceful protest or boycotts, advocacy or whistleblowing. Wealthy and powerful individuals abuse the law to force their critics into time-consuming and costly legal proceedings aimed at silencing them.
Given the threat to fundamental rights posed by SLAPPs, CASE considers a strong EU anti-SLAPP law necessary to protect democratic values, such as freedom of expression and the right to protest across the EU. An anti-SLAPP EU directive, as detailed in the Model EU Directive drafted by the CASE coalition, would provide a high and uniform level of protection against SLAPPs in all EU countries and serve as a model across the continent.
More than 200.000 citizens, 170+ civil society groups urge change
CASE presented the call by 213,432 people for strong legal safeguards against SLAPPS to Vice President Jourová on the heels of the public consultation that the Commission launched to map the SLAPP phenomenon. More than 170 Civil Society groups from across Europe have joined the call, including the Coalition for Women in Journalism, and Maltese NGOs Aditus, Repubblika, and PEN Malta, inspired by the experience of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who faced multiple SLAPPs now inherited by her family. The 146 submissions by stakeholders were thus backed by the voices of hundreds of thousands of people across Europe, who want the EU to put an end to the abuse of the justice system via SLAPPs.
In its own submission to the Commission’s consultation, CASE argues that any measures introduced by the Commission must address the full scale of the problem - encompassing both cross-border and domestic SLAPPs.
The Commission is set to present an EU-wide anti-SLAPP initiative on 23 March.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.
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