{"id":3965,"date":"2020-06-08T10:26:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T08:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2020-06-26T18:48:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T16:48:09","slug":"ending-slapps-strategic-lawsuits-against-public-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/issues\/democracy-europe\/3965\/ending-slapps-strategic-lawsuits-against-public-participation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending SLAPPs: strategic lawsuits against public participation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Together with over a 100 NGOs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/20200608-ending-SLAPPs-NGO-paper.pdf\">we have published a policy paper<\/a> on how the EU should end gag lawsuits, also known as SLAPPs.<br><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/20200608-ending-SLAPPs-NGO-paper.pdf\">Read the full policy paper here.<\/a><\/div>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large  caption-style-blue-overlay caption-alignment-center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"673\" src=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/a9804ce0-gp04yc8_medium_res_with_credit_line-1024x673.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3967\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/a9804ce0-gp04yc8_medium_res_with_credit_line-1024x673.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/a9804ce0-gp04yc8_medium_res_with_credit_line-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/a9804ce0-gp04yc8_medium_res_with_credit_line-768x505.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/a9804ce0-gp04yc8_medium_res_with_credit_line-510x335.jpg 510w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/06\/a9804ce0-gp04yc8_medium_res_with_credit_line.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n<p>Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) 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, associations, academics, trade unions, media organisations and civil society organisations. SLAPPs are a threat to freedom of expression, advocacy and assembly rights.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p>Recent examples of SLAPPs include <a href=\"https:\/\/actions.sumofus.org\/a\/can-you-chip-in-to-help-defend-us-against-paypal\">Paypal libel against SumOfUs<\/a> for a peaceful protest outside its headquarters in Germany, or<a href=\"https:\/\/monitor.civicus.org\/newsfeed\/2018\/03\/09\/slapp-lawsuits-threaten-critical-voices-france\/\"> Bollore Group\u2019s 20 lawsuits against NGOs Sherpa and ReAct in France<\/a> to stop them reporting human rights abuses in Cameroon. When Maltese journalist Daphne<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/analysis\/slapp-daphne-caruana-galizia-malta.php\"> Caurana Galizia was brutally killed she had 47 SLAPPs pending against her<\/a>. Greenpeace offices and campaigners have been sued by many companies across the world, including by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/resolutelawsuits\/\">Resolute Forest Products<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p>Greenpeace has already shared with European Commission Vice President Jourov\u00e1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eu-unit-stateless\/2020\/01\/20200127-Letter-to-Commissioner-Jourova-SLAPPs.pdf\">our concerns<\/a> that the planned measures to deter SLAPPs could fail to include <em>all <\/em>those affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Together with over a 100 NGOs, we have published a policy paper on how the EU should end gag lawsuits, also known as SLAPPs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"not set","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,33],"p4-page-type":[17],"class_list":["post-3965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy-europe","tag-democracy","tag-justice","p4-page-type-statement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3968,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions\/3968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}