Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are increasing across Europe, abusing laws to silence journalists and other public watchdogs, threatening free speech and your right to know.Read The Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE)’s latest report on over 500 SLAPP cases from 29 countries across Europe.
Since 2019 CASE has been working with Amsterdam Law Clinics, part of the Law Faculty at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), to catalogue and analyse SLAPP cases from across Europe. Thanks to input from organisations across the CASE coalition, we have collected together 570 cases over a 10 year period. On the basis of this data, we have identified a number of clear trends. In particular, we have found that the number of SLAPP cases across Europe has been increasing year on year, with the highest number recorded in 2020, followed by 2021 and 2019: