Over 60 editors, journalists, writers, publishers and experts call on the UK Government to commit to a standalone anti-SLAPP law

21 Sep 23 | News and features, Slapps, United Kingdom

Over 60 editors, journalists, writers, publishers, academics and experts, including the CEOs of ITN and Pan Macmillan, as well as the editors of The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Private Eye, Tortoise and The Mirror have written to Justice Secretary Alex Chalk KC MP to request that a standalone anti-SLAPP Bill is included in the King’s Speech. The letter has been sent ahead of the King’s Speech on 7 November, in which the Government will outline its priorities for the forthcoming parliamentary session.

The Government has already committed to bring forward a package of measures that take aim at Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). Launching the commitment in July 2022, the former Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab said: “I’m announcing reforms to uphold freedom of speech, end the abuse of our justice system, and defend those who bravely shine a light on corruption.” However, over a year after that commitment was made there has been little progress towards universal protection against SLAPPs. While limited anti-SLAPP provisions have been included in a recent amendment to the forthcoming Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, this is only a partial victory.

“As an important part of the global financial system, it is vital that the UK ensures journalists and public watchdogs are able to continue their work without risking legal harassment. However, this amendment does not go far enough as it only covers claims relating to the ‘public interest in protecting society from economic crimes’” the signatories said in their letter to the Justice Secretary. “It also introduces an unnecessary element of uncertainty by making the operation of the law contingent on the belief of the defendant and the perceived purpose of the filer.”

As this King’s Speech is the last to take place during this Parliament and before the expected next general election, it is the last opportunity for this Government to realise its commitment to stamp out SLAPPs. The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition’s Model Anti-SLAPP Law produced with support from leading legal and industry experts, provides a road map towards protecting public watchdogs from legal harassment. Index on Censorship is a co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition which coordinated and sent the letter.

“ITN supports this initiative as an organisation committed to ensuring that journalists can undertake public interest investigations without fear of harassment or financial penalty. ITN’s motto is to bring truth to life, which is based on 67 years of independent journalism, and the belief that stories we can trust empower us all. An Anti-SLAPP Bill would signal to the world that the UK proudly supports journalism that can ask difficult questions and hold power to account and ultimately improve the world we live in.”

Rachel Corp, CEO of ITN

“This campaign to address the misuse of libel laws to the detriment of serious journalism is gathering the momentum it deserves. This country is unique in the hurdles it presents for public interest investigations and the chilling effect of its law before stories are even published. Independent, fearless journalism comes at a premium and our laws should not be used as an additional obstacle to publication.”

Pia Sarma, editorial legal director at Times Newspapers Ltd

“Until there are serious legislative steps, taken by Parliament to address the abuse of the UK legal system to target journalists, it’s safe to assume those abuses will continue. My own case demonstrates the absurdity of the current situation, and inaction at this stage is nothing less than complicity in the further abuse of the UK legal system, and a sad reflection on the inability of the British government to take blindingly obvious action on protecting fundamental democratic principles.”

Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat

“SLAPPs are a real and growing threat to democracy, and we will all benefit from protecting journalists against these abusive lawsuits.”

Paul Caruana Galizia, reporter at Tortoise

“Many victims of sexual violence already go through immense amounts of internalised shame, especially when failed by the justice system. As a result, social media is now often sadly our last hope to protect others from abuse. But now, when we finally dare speak, we’re punished by SLAPP threats that are designed to destroy. It’s not a fair fight.”

Nina Cresswell, journalist, writer and former SLAPP target

The letter and list of signatories are below. Alternatively click here to read a PDF version

 

Sent Electronically

 

Mr. Alex Chalk KC MP, Secretary of State for Justice

Rt. Hon. Rishi Sunak MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 

Rt. Hon. Lucy Frazer KC MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Rt. Hon. James Cleverly MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs

Ms. Shabana Mahmood MP, Shadow Labour Secretary of State for Justice

Rt. Hon. Alistair Carmichael MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Home Affairs, Justice and Northern Ireland

Mr. Chris Stephens MP, Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Justice)

Mr. Paul Philip, Chief Executive, Solicitors Regulation Authority

Mr. Mark Neale, Director-General, The Bar Standards Board

Mr. Matthew Hill, Chief Executive, Legal Services Board

Ms. Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights 

Ms. Teresa Ribeiro, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Representative on Freedom of the Media

Ms. Irene Khan, United Nations Special Rapporteur on on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression

 

20 September 2023

Dear Alex Chalk KC MP,

We call on you to include an Anti-SLAPP law in the King’s Speech

We joined the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition in welcoming the UK Government’s commitment to address Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and their impact on the British justice system. However, we remain concerned by the lack of meaningful progress since the announcement in July 2022. The inclusion of  a commitment in the forthcoming King’s Speech to bring forward a standalone Anti-SLAPP Bill will be an unequivocal statement that the UK Government is committed to stamp out SLAPPs.

We support the anti-SLAPP amendment to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill as a significant step in the right direction to protect public interest reporting on economic crime. As an important part of the global financial system, it is vital that the UK ensures journalists and public watchdogs are able to continue their work without risking legal harassment. However, this amendment does not go far enough as it only covers claims relating to the “public interest in protecting society from economic crimes”. It also introduces an unnecessary element of uncertainty by making the operation of the law contingent on the belief of the defendant and the perceived purpose of the filer. The Government itself has acknowledged the current amendment as “the first step in cracking down on SLAPPs used to limit freedom of speech,” not the full realisation of its commitment.

Therefore, the next step must be a standalone Anti-SLAPP Bill to extend protections to everyone who speaks out in the public interest. The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition has demonstrated how this can be done with their Model Law which we shared with your office last year. As a result, there is no reason why a standalone Anti-SLAPP Bill shouldn’t be included in the King’s Speech. Only with the fulfilment of a universally applicable law will the Government’s commitment be realised.

Many of the cases that have been monitored by the Coalition would have been unaffected by the proposed amendment. This includes the legal threat from the Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin against Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, ENRC’s SLAPP action against journalist and author Tom Burgis and the defamation action brought against Nina Cresswell by her abuser after she bravely spoke out to protect other women, to name but a few. Cases like these demonstrate the need for an anti-SLAPP bill that protects everyone speaking out.

The Government will, in its own words, “set out further legislation beyond economic crime when parliamentary time allows.” This can only happen if an Anti-SLAPP Bill is included in the King’s Speech, which will outline the Government’s programme of work in the coming Parliamentary session. This would be the last opportunity to realise the commitment before the expected general election.

Addressing this issue has broad public and political support and represents a significant opportunity to protect free speech and shield British courts from abuse.

Kind regards,

Rachel Corp, CEO, ITN

Alison Phillips, Editor, The Mirror

Chris Evans, Editor, The Telegraph

Katharine Viner, Editor-in-Chief, The Guardian

Victoria Newton, Editor-in-Chief, The Sun

Paul Webster, Editor, The Observer

Roula Khalaf, Editor, The Financial Times

Tony Gallagher, Editor, The Times

Ben Taylor, Editor, The Sunday Times

John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg

Ian Hislop, Editor, Private Eye

Alan Rusbridger, Editor, Prospect Magazine

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist

Julian Richards, Managing Editor, openDemocracy

Oliver Duff, Editor-in-Chief, i

Rozina Breen, CEO, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ)

Drew Sullivan, Co-Founder, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)

Paul Radu, Co-Founder, OCCRP

Eliot Higgins, Founder, Bellingcat

James Harding, Founder & Editor, Tortoise

Franz Wild, Editor, TBIJ

Joanna Prior, CEO, Pan Macmillan

Arabella Pike, Publishing Director, HarperCollins UK

Dan Conway, CEO, Publishers Association

José Borghino, Secretary General, International Publishers Association

Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary, National Union of Journalists (NUJ)

Sayra Tekin, Director of Legal, News Media Association (NMA)

Dawn Alford, Executive Director, Society of Editors

Gill Phillips, Editorial Legal Consultant, Guardian News & Media

Pia Sarma, Editorial Legal Director, Times Newspapers Ltd

Adam Cannon, Director of Legal, NGN

Sarah Baxter, Director, Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting

Rachel Oldroyd, Deputy Investigations Editor, The Guardian

Juliette Garside, Deputy Business Editor, The Guardian

Stewart Kirkpatrick, Head of Impact, openDemocracy

Chrissie Giles, Deputy Editor, TBIJ

Richard Sambrook, Co-Chair of the Board, TBIJ

Isabel Hilton, Co-Chair of the Board, TBIJ

Mark Stephens CBE, Partner, Howard Kennedy LLP

Matthew Jury, Managing Partner, McCue Jury and Partners

Caroline Kean, Consultant Partner, Wiggin

David Price KC

Rupert Cowper-Coles, Partner, RPC

Paul Caruana Galizia, Reporter, Tortoise

Oliver Bullough, Journalist and author

Peter Geoghegan, Journalist and author

Carole Cadwalladr, Journalist, The Observer

Catherine Belton, Journalist and author of Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the west

Richard Brooks, journalist, Private Eye

Meirion Jones, investigative journalist

Sean O’Neill, Senior Writer, The Times

George Greenwood, Investigations Reporter, The Times

Clare Rewcastle Brown, Investigative Journalist and Founder, The Sarawak Report

Nina Cresswell, Writer and journalist

Matthew Caruana Galizia, Director, The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation

Jodie Ginsberg, President, Committee to Protect Journalists

Alexander Papachristou, Executive Director, Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice

Zelda Perkins, Co-Founder, Can’t Buy My Silence campaign to ban the misuse of NDAs

Dr Julie Macfarlane, Co-Founder, Can’t Buy My Silence campaign to ban the misuse of NDAs

James Nixey, Director, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House

Edward Lucas, Author, European and transatlantic security consultant and fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)

John Heathershaw, Professor of International Relations, University of Exeter

Dr Tena Prelec, Research Associate, LSEE Research on SEE, LSE

Dr Peter Coe, Associate Professor in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham

Thomas Mayne, Research Fellow, University of Oxford

Contents – Express yourself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes

02 Aug 23 | Afghanistan, Brazil, China, France, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Contents

The Summer 2023 issue of Index looks at neurodiversity, the term coined in the late 1990s to identify and promote the positives of variation in human thinking which has become more widely used in the past few years. Are old stereotypes still rife? Has the perception of neurodiversity improved? If not, was this because of censorship? Using neurodivergent voices, we wanted to know about this in a global context.

The majority of the articles are written by neurodivergent people, as we wanted to put their voices front and centre. Many said they did have more of a voice, awareness had shot up and the word “neurodiversity” empowered and welcomed a growth in onscreen representation. However, at the same time it was clear that conversations around neurodiversity were playing out along society’s current fault-lines and were far from immune.

Up Front

Mind matters, by Jemimah Seinfeld: The term neurodiversity has positively challenged how we approach our minds. Has it done enough?

The Index, by Mark Frary: The latest in free expression news, from an explainer on Sudan to a cha-cha-cha starring Meghan and King Charles.

Features

Bars can't stop a bestseller, by Kaya Genç: Fiction is finding its way out of a Turkish prison, says former presidential hopeful and bestselling writer
Selahattin Demirtaş.

Don't mention femicide, by Chris Havler-Barrett: Murdered women are an inconvenience for Mexico’s president.

This is no joke, by Qian Gong and Jian Xu: The treatment of China’s comedians is no laughing matter.

Silent Disco, by Andrew Mambondiyani: Politicians are purging playlists in Zimbabwe, and musicians are speaking out.

When the Russians came, by Alina Smutko, Taras Ibragimov and Aliona Savchuk: The view from inside occupied Crimea, through the cameras of photographers banned by the Kremlin.

The language of war and peace, by JP O’Malley: Kremlin-declared “Russophobe foreign agent and traitor” Mikhail Shishkin lays out the impossible choices for Russians.

Writer's block, by Stacey Tsui: Hong Kong’s journalists are making themselves heard, thanks to blockchain technology.

The Russians risking it all, by Katie Dancey-Downs: Forced to sing songs and labelled as extremists, anti-war Russians are finding creative ways to take a stand.

The 'truth' is in the tea, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Spilling the tea on a London venue, which found itself in hot water due to a far-right speaker.

Waiting for China's tap on the shoulder, by Chu Yang: However far they travel, there’s no safe haven for journalists and academics who criticise China.

When the old fox walks the tightrope, by Danson Kahyana: An interview with Stella Nyanzi on Uganda’s latest anti-LGBTQ+ law.

Would the media lie to you?, by Ali Latifi: Fake news is flourishing in Afghanistan, in ways people might not expect.

Britain's Holocaust island, by Martin Bright: Confronting Britain’s painful secret, and why we must acknowledge what happened on Nazi-occupied Alderney.

The thorn in Vietnam's civil society side, by Thiện Việt: Thiện Việt: Responding to mass suppression with well-organised disruption.

Special Report: Express yoruself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes

Not a slur, by Nick Ransom: What’s in a word? Exploring representation, and the power of the term “neurodiversity” to divide or unite.

Sit down, shut up, by Katharine P Beals: The speech of autistic non-speakers is being hijacked.

Fake it till you break it, by Morgan Barbour: Social media influencers are putting dissociative identity disorder in the spotlight, but some are accused of faking it.

Weaponising difference, by Simone Dias Marques: Ableist slurs in Brazil are equating neurodivergence with criminality.

Autism on screen is gonna be okay, by Katie Dancey-Downs: The Rain Man days are over. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay star Lillian Carrier digs into autism on screen.

Raising Malaysia's roof, by Francis Clarke: In a comedy club in Malaysia’s capital stand up is where people open up, says comedian Juliana Heng.

Living in the Shadows, by Ashley Gjøvik: When successful camouflage has a lasting impact.

Nigeria's crucible, by Ugonna-Ora Owoh: Between silence and lack of understanding, Nigeria’s neurodiverse are being mistreated.

My autism is not a lie, by Meltem Arikan: An autism diagnosis at 52 liberated a dissident playwright, but there’s no space for her truth in Turkey.

Comment

Lived experience, to a point, by Julian Baggini: When it comes to cultural debates, whose expertise carries the most weight?

France: On the road to illiberalism? by Jean-Paul Marthoz: Waving au revoir to the right to criticise.

Monitoring terrorists, gangs - and historians, by Andrew Lownie: The researcher topping the watchlist on his majesty’s secret service.

We are all dissidents, by Ruth Anderson: Calls to disassociate from certain dissidents due to their country of birth are toxic and must be challenged.

Culture

Manuscripts don't burn, by Rebecca Ruth Gould: Honouring the writers silenced by execution in Georgia, and unmuzzling their voices.

Obscenely familiar, by Marc Nash: A book arguing for legalised homosexuality is the spark for a fiction rooted in true events.

A truly graphic tale, by Taha Siddiqui and Zofeen T Ebrahim: A new graphic novel lays bare life on Pakistan’s kill list, finding atheism and a blasphemous tattoo.

A censored day? by Kaya Genç: Unravelling the questions that plague the censor, in a new short story from the Turkish author.

Poetry's peacebuilding tentacles, by Natasha Tripney: Literature has proven its powers of peace over the last decade in Kosovo.

Palestine: I still have hope, by Bassem Eid: Turning to Israel and Palestine, where an activist believes the international community is complicit in the conflict.

What is the Marxist vision of journalism?

14 Jul 23 | China, News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog

It seems I am reminded daily that I am very lucky to live in a democracy. I may not agree with my Government - but I have the right to tell them I don’t. I may not agree with what’s written in a newspaper - but I have the right to tell the world I don’t. I may not support the status quo in terms of what is happening in my community - but I have the right to speak to my neighbours and demand better and demand change.

Those basic rights to challenge the orthodoxy, to challenge my political leaders, to challenge authority is a blessing and one that I value every day, especially when I am exposed to what happens to people who by dint of birth just aren’t afforded the same rights as me.

This week, yet again, we’ve read reports of events in China. Not only has the CCP continued their persecution of political dissidents by taking in Nathan Law’s family for questioning but they’ve also rolled out a new tool for ‘training’ journalists. The new smartphone training programme from the All China Journalists Association seeks to train aspirant and current journalists in the ‘Marxist vision of journalism’. I honestly have no idea as to what that could possibly entail as I’m not sure that the Communist Manifesto issued ideological guidance for the execution of occupational journalism.

However, what we do know is that no good will come from a CCP-sanctioned training programme designed to brainwash aspiring journalists, who live under a despotic regime, into writing acceptable forms of ‘journalism’. To compound the propaganda element of the training programme - journalists will be forced to undertake the programme before they take an exam to test their loyalty to Xi Jingping and if you don’t pass you don’t get to be a journalist.

This isn’t journalism in any way that those of us who live in a freer society would recognise. It’s an effort to ensure the ongoing practice of national propaganda under the pretence of ‘journalism’. It’s the ultimate effort to ensure that no one can speak truth to power and that only one dominant narrative - that of the CCP - is heard. There will be no challenge to the status quo. There will be no free media. There will be no dissent.

The question for global media outlets then becomes how on earth do you cover events in China if journalists on the ground are actually propaganda agents and it’s increasingly difficult for foreign news journalists to operate freely. We covered this earlier this year. But as some dictators become even more fearful of their own people - this is a question which is increasingly going to dominate newsrooms around the world.

Chilling intimidation campaign against journalist outside Chinese borders

14 Jul 23 | China, Netherlands, News and features

One day last October, journalist and former China correspondent with the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant Marije Vlaskamp received an odd email. It contained confirmation of a hotel reservation at the Holiday Inn Express in The Hague made on Booking.com in her name.

Two things struck her as extremely strange. One is that the reservation had been made on the Chinese language version of the website; the second is that she had never made the booking.

After calling the hotel to cancel the reservation, things became even more unsettling.

She received a message from the Chinese dissident Wang Jingyu, whom she had interviewed before. Wang had recently found refuge in the Netherlands and she had been in touch with him for a story about the ‘long arm of China’. He told Vlaskamp that a room had been booked in his name in the same hotel. Wang had also received an anonymous threat in Chinese: “‘One tip-off from me and the police will come and arrest you and your journalist friend.”

This was the moment Vlaskamp thought it was about time to inform her superiors at the paper – but not before she made herself a pot of jasmine tea. After having worked in China as a correspondent between 2001 and 2019, she knew the intimidation tactics of the Chinese state very well. She just never expected to be confronted with them after her return to the Netherlands.

Vlaskamp told the story in a long-form article in de Volkskrant in early April.

In it she revealed that the hotel reservation was just the first step in a campaign of intimidation targeted at both her and Wang.

Vlaskamp says as part of the campaign that she had received an anonymous warning that her name would be linked with bomb threats. A day later, she saw on the news that the residence of Dutch prime-minister Mark Rutte had been cordoned off and police, fire brigades and the bomb disposal unit were on the scene. Her heart “skipped a beat” when she heard that the threat was a car with a foreign number plate parked in the street where the Chinese embassy is located, just 200 meters away from the PM’s residence. That’s when she knew that the messages were part of a serious threat against her.

What is unclear is who is sending these intimidating messages. Putting pieces of the puzzle together, there is no doubt that they were acting on behalf of the Chinese state. In her article, Vlaskamp writes about researchers and scientists who have been warning for some time that China has been working on a network of influencing, subversion and intimidation abroad, while digital traces lead Dutch police investigators to IP-addresses in China and Hong Kong. But the Chinese state couldn’t be caught red-handed.

Vlaskamp is one of the first journalists to be subject to an intimidation campaign by China outside Chinese borders. In the summer 2023 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, we wrote about the case of Australian journalist Vicky Xiuzhong Xu. She and her family were harassed after contributing to a 2020 report on human rights violations in Xinjiang.

The frightening events Vlaskamp experienced illustrate perfectly just how far China is willing to go to protect its interests and silence dissidents and journalists.

But would it be wise to publish? No one could predict what effect a publication would have, and whether it would bring more risks for Vlaskamp. Both her and Wang had been threatened anonymously and told to stop their interviews and not to re-publish previous articles about Wang. They both refused to comply.

Eventually, the decision to publish was made but only after six months of soul-searching and journalistic research.

The paper explained at the time: “We only wanted to publish this story if our reporter was fully behind it. Which she is. As she writes herself, the journalistic duty to reveal wrongs takes precedence here. Besides, it is by no means certain that the intimidations would stop if she would not write about this. If her assailants believe that these intimidating practices are effective, only more of the same would be in store for her later on. And not just for Marije Vlaskamp. We are worried about a chilling effect: if de Volkskrant allows itself to be muzzled by persons claiming to act on behalf of a foreign power, this essentially affects all journalists who write critically about autocratic regimes.”

In a strongly-worded comment piece two days after the publication, de Volkskrant put the intimidation campaign against Vlaskamp and dissident Wang in a broader perspective. Not just the perspective of press freedom, which was clearly in jeopardy here, but also that of autocrats like China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who increase pressure on those who refuse to surrender to the autocrat’s personal version of reality. Within their own borders, their methods are harsh, and abroad they resort to increasingly shameless psychological warfare, the paper wrote.

Thomas Bruning, secretary general of the Dutch Association of Journalists, said that the events underscore the importance of not underestimating the use of spyware and other forms of digital surveillance. He said: “Vlaskamp’s case makes clear that journalists who critically follow regimes like China’s are vulnerable and deserve protection. More generally, journalists should be aware that digital intimidation and threats are an issue against they will have to arm themselves pro-actively.”

A search in the archives of de Volkskrant shows that the piece of early April is the last one Vlaskamp wrote about China. The paper has had a new China correspondent since 2019 but Vlaskamp had continued to write pieces for which her extensive knowledge of the country gave her analysis extra depth. Since April, she has written about Pakistan, India, Japan, North and South Korea, but not about China.

It begs the question of whether this is to protect her. Both Vlaskamp and de Volkskrant have refused to say.

[Both Vlaskamp and de Volkskrant were contacted to contribute to this story but would not comment further.]