Amsterdam, Netherlands — Academy Award-winning actor Javier Bardem and Children’s and Family Emmy Award-nominated actress Yasmin Finney star in a new film, SLAPP Suit, that dramatises the threat of — and resistance to — abusive SLAPP lawsuits, released globally today by Greenpeace International.
Billionaire bullies and corporate polluters use Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) to bury activists, journalists, whistleblowers, and non-profit organisations in legal fees, drain their time and resources, and ultimately make the cost of dissent too high. US-based fossil fuel pipeline company Energy Transfer has been waging back-to-back abusive SLAPP lawsuits against Greenpeace in the US and Greenpeace International for nearly a decade in a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Academy Award-winning actor and activist Javier Bardem said: “I made this film with Greenpeace because they’re fighting a monumental legal battle about free speech, but really it’s about something much bigger: widespread attempts to silence activism. The type of lawsuits used by pipeline company Energy Transfer are also being used to silence journalists, artists and ordinary people who care about their communities. The question is not why to speak out. But how could we not, if we want to have the same freedom in the future?”
The threat of corporate intimidation tactics like SLAPP lawsuits is far bigger than Greenpeace. Corporate polluters and greedy oligarchs know protest works — that’s why they’re trying to make the stakes so high no one will be willing to take the risk to defend people or the planet.
Children’s and Family Emmy Award-nominated UK actress Yasmin Finney said: “The right to protest in the UK is a huge battle. People demanding better is what built our country, but increasingly it’s becoming criminalised. Not enough people believe or see that our rights are really under threat, and that’s why we made this film: Greenpeace’s legal fight against Energy Transfer is one example of resistance, but there are many more. Bullies respond to strength and togetherness, and that’s what we need more of right now.”
Big Oil companies Shell, Total, and ENI have also filed SLAPPs against Greenpeace entities in recent years. A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. Meanwhile, Greenpeace organisations the US and Greenpeace International continue the legal fight against the US$345 million judgment in Energy Transfer’s abusive lawsuit in North Dakota. In Europe, Netherlands-based Greenpeace International is pursuing justice with a landmark anti-SLAPP case that aims to hold Energy Transfer accountable for its back-to-back abusive lawsuits under Dutch law and the EU’s new anti-SLAPP directive.
Susannah Compton, Greenpeace International, Head of Programme – Civic Resistance and Freedoms said: “The global threat of corporate intimidation tactics such as SLAPP lawsuits is an existential crisis for freedom of speech and protest for everyone who dares speak out against the powerful – whether Greenpeace would agree with them or not. If we do not defend our right to resist, we surrender the future to a few oligarchs who see power as a tool for empire rather than a shared responsibility.”
ENDS
Notes:
Photo and video collections: Stills and behind the scenes gallery are available in the Greenpeace Media Library. The full film, SLAPP Suit, is available to watch on Greenpeace YouTube channel.
Contacts:
Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), [email protected]
