SLAPP

16 results arranged by date

The European Commission headquarters is seen in Brussels, Belgium, on April 23, 2020. CPJ recently joined a joint letter to the EU calling for reform of the group's defamation law. (Reuters/Johanna Geron)

CPJ joins call for reform of EU defamation law

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 25 other press freedom organizations today in sending a joint letter to the European Commission calling for reforms to European Union law on defamation.

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Members of the European Parliament called on European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, pictured, to introduce a directive against abuse of lawsuits to silence critical journalists. (Reuters)

CPJ welcomes call for EU directive against SLAPPs

Brussels, February 22, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today welcomed a call from members of the European Parliament on Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans to introduce a new European Union directive to stop abusive lawsuits against critical journalists.

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A newspaper vendor stacks newspapers on his bicycle in Mumbai. Indian journalists say companies are using the legal notices as an attempt to silence critical reporting. (AP/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Q&A: Indian editor explains how threat of legal action is used to silence journalists

On July 5, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and his colleagues Advait Rao Palepu and Shinzani Jain, received a notice from Thaker and co., a law firm representing Adani Power Ltd, that threatened legal action over a story published the month before.

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Big businesses attempt to muzzle critical reporting in India

This month Keya Acharya is responding to a nine-page legal notice demanding she pay 1 billion rupees ($16.3 million) over her article on India’s rose industry. Her legal troubles are a window on to a pattern of how big businesses are using India’s outdated defamation laws to silence criticism of their operations.

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Free speech in India: Between the bullet, baton, and gavel

Freedom of speech and expression in India is balanced precariously between the ever-present threat of direct, physical attacks from both security forces and social vigilante groups on the one hand, and the reassurance of protection from higher judicial authorities on the other. But the scales seem tipped in favor of the former.

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Nishioka (CPJ)

Japanese press advocates face 50 lawsuits, broken ribs

Kensuke Nishioka, 42, looked different from the other Japanese journalists I encountered in Tokyo during a February trip. Maybe it was the pink hair. “Don’t believe any journalist who says they’re at risk in Japan,” he declared, shrugging off the time, at age 32, when two members of a nationalist group cornered him in his office, broke his…

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