Celebrating Europe’s biggest bullies

The 2025 edition of the annual European SLAPP Contest put on by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) took place in Brussels last week in front of an enthusiastic crowd, brought together by a shared determination to celebrate those who use the legal system to harass and intimidate people across Europe so impressively.

Though these corporations and individuals may be too humble to seek the spotlight themselves, we are determined to shine a light on their efforts. After all, such hard work should not go unnoticed!

So, in no particular order, the winners of the European SLAPP Contest 2025 are…

Clean Tech International (Romania)

Clean Tech International was the deserving winner of the Corporate Bully of the Year award due to its tireless efforts intimidating environmental activists who insist upon making themselves a nuisance by protesting against pollution in the local area.

AER Muntenia, an environmental conservation organisation based in Slobozia – a Romanian city with a population of around 50,000 people – had the audacity to challenge Clean Tech’s environmental permit due to the activists’ claim that the city is being polluted with unbearable smells and loud noise. The multi-million-pound corporation responded in a logical manner, suing the concerned citizens involved for €20 million ($22.7 million) in damages should the permit be suspended, and causing the citizens’ land assets to be frozen.

Clean Tech has shown that nobody is too small or well-meaning to avoid punishment for their activism. Although it sadly could not be in attendance for the award ceremony, its certificate was graciously accepted on its behalf by the president of AER Muntenia, Dorina Milea, her son Eduard and the group’s representative Ciprian Bocioaga. Their passionate speeches about their desire for clean air and wish to protect their home city laid bare their villainous intentions.

Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture (France)

Another worthy winner, current French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati is now the proud owner of the 2025 SLAPP Politician of the Year award thanks to her dogged consistency and determination when it comes to silencing unfavourable media coverage.

Dati has filed multiple defamation lawsuits against media outlets Le Canard enchaîné, Le Nouvel Observateur and Libération over reports on her political and financial dealings, including ties to Azerbaijan, Qatar and former corporate executives. We applaud her dedication to obstructing such menacing practices as investigative journalism.

Although Dati has lost several of her cases, she is undeterred; for her, it’s the taking part that counts (particularly as the burden of spiralling legal costs faced by media outlets creates an environment of fear, encouraging self-censorship). Our congratulations to her.

Signature Clinic (UK)

It takes quite some doing to emerge victorious in the competitive category that is Farcical Threat of the Year, but the UK-based cosmetic surgery firm Signature Clinic managed it.

The problem began when several clients decided to brazenly exercise their right to free speech by writing of the disappointing experiences they had had at the clinic on social media. However, the pain described by those former clients pales in comparison to the suffering of Signature Clinic, which recognised that such comments could in fact be bad for business. It took the logical next step and politely asked those involved to remove their negative reviews by threatening them with imprisonment and filing police reports over their posts.

Although a harassment injunction case was dismissed as “totally without merit” in 2024 and most cases have been lost or settled, Signature Clinic has ploughed on with its attempts to silence criticism, with one case still ongoing. Its commitment to improving its reputation by responding aggressively to those who publicise its faults is certainly an interesting tactic, and is well worthy of this prestigious award.

Energy Transfer (Netherlands / US)

From the company who brought you Dakota Access Pipeline, get ready for the International Bully of the Year award! US-based Energy company Energy Transfer (ET) states on its website that it is “committed to protecting the environment” as well as “respecting all others and taking care of the land through which we cross”. What better way to show this than to sue activists from the environmental non-profit organisation Greenpeace International for hundreds of millions of pounds?

ET accused Greenpeace International (and other wings of Greenpeace) of defamation, of orchestrating criminal behaviour during protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline, and of inciting, funding and facilitating acts of terrorism. So, what did Greenpeace do to evoke such ire? Did it blow up some of ET’s pipelines with sticks of dynamite? Nope – it supported the Standing Rock tribe as they stood against the pipeline, signing an open letter alongside 500 other organisations calling on lenders to halt their loans to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

ET was understandably worried that the protests against its actions were harming the company’s reputation. We hope that winning an award as prestigious as the 2025 International Bully of the Year will help to ease such fears.

Eni (Italy)

No case is too small for our next winner, who picked up the gong for 2025 SLAPP Addict of the Year – it’s Eni!

Despite being one of the world’s largest oil companies, it still finds the time to ensure no stone goes unturned when it comes to protecting its good name. It doesn’t discriminate when it comes to SLAPPs, having filed defamation lawsuits against journalists, activists and environmental groups. Now that’s a strong work ethic.

It’s naturally tough to narrow down the highlights from the SLAPP Addict of the Year, but one particularly notable case targeted Greenpeace and ReCommon, two entities that a few months earlier had filed a legal action seeking to hold Eni accountable for past and potential future damages for its contribution to the climate crisis.

Eni’s determination to silence criticism comes despite suffering major losses in lawsuits against the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano and journalist Claudio Gatti over coverage of the Opl 245 corruption scandal in Nigeria. The resolve to continue on its litigious path is an inspiration to bullies everywhere.

Aleksandar Šapić, Mayor of Belgrade (Serbia)

Being recognised by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the SLAPP contest jury is one thing, but it’s an added privilege to pick up the 2025 People’s Choice award. This year, that honour belongs to the Mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić.

Šapić filed a lawsuit in 2023 against the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN Serbia) and several members of its staff over an article exposing his undeclared €820,000 ($929,700) villa in Trieste, seeking €51,200 ($58,000) in damages for emotional distress.

BIRN maintains that its reporting was accurate and verified, but its staff will be sure to think twice about conducting investigative journalism thanks to the tireless efforts of the Belgrade mayor.

All in all, the event was a highly successful evening celebrating the impressive work of Europe’s biggest bullies. Thanks to the five MEPs who made up our jury panel, Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová (Renew), Daniel Freund (The Greens / European Free Alliance), David Casa (European People’s Party), Sandro Ruotolo (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats) and Manon Aubry (The Left). Thanks also to those who stepped up during the ceremony to receive the awards on behalf of the winners, who were mysteriously absent. Let’s do it again next year!

Read more about the work CASE do to fight SLAPPs here.

Watch the full livestream of the 2025 European SLAPP Contest here.

The dangers of boycotting Russian science

Mikhail Viktorovich Feigelman started working at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Moscow in 1980. Eleven years later, when the Soviet Union collapsed, funding and decent modern equipment were rare for Russian scientists but there was suddenly intellectual freedom.

“This is why I stayed in Russia at this time, despite the hardships,” the 70-year-old physicist told Index. “This freedom during the 1990s was very important, but it didn’t last long.”

In May 2022, just months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Feigelman fled to western Europe.

“I left exclusively because of the war,” he said. “I could no longer live in Russia anymore, where I see many parallels with Nazi Germany. I will not return home until the death of Putin.”

Initially, Feigelman took up a position at a research laboratory in Grenoble, France, where he stayed for a year and a half. Today, he is employed as a researcher at Nanocenter in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

“I have not experienced any prejudice or discrimination in either France or Slovenia,” he said.

“But in Germany – at least in some institutions – there is a [ban] on Russian scientists, and it is forbidden to invite them for official scientific visits.”

These measures stem from a decision taken by the European Commission in April 2022 to suspend all co-operation with Russian entities in research, science and innovation.

That included the cutting of all funding that was previously supplied to Russian science organisations under the EU’s €95.5 billon research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe.

The boycotting had already begun elsewhere. In late February 2022, the Journal of Molecular Structure, a Netherlands-based peer-reviewed journal that specialises in chemistry, decided not to consider any manuscripts authored by scientists working at Russian Federation institutions.

One former employee at the journal, who wished to remain anonymous, said Russian scientists were always welcomed to publish in the journal. “A decision had been taken, for humanitarian reasons, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not to accept any submission authored by scientists (whatever their nationality) working for Russian institutions,” they said.

Last January, Christian Jelsch became the journal’s editor. “This policy to ban Russian manuscripts was implemented by the previous editor,” he said. “But it was terminated when I started as editor.”

Feigelman believes all steps taken “to prevent institutional co-operation between Europe and Russia are completely correct and necessary.”

But he added: “Contact from European scientists with individual scientists must be continued, as long as those scientists in question are not supporters of Putin.”

Alexandra Borissova Saleh does not share that view.

“Boycotts in science don’t work,” she said. “There is a vast literature out there on this topic.”

She was previously head of communication at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and head of the science desk at Tass News Agency in Moscow.

Today, Borissova Saleh lives in Italy, where she works as a freelance science journalist and media marketing consultant. She has not returned to Russia since 2019, mainly because of how scientists are now treated there.

“If you are a top researcher in Russia who has presented your work abroad, you could likely face a long-term prison sentence, which ultimately could cost you your life,” she said.

“But the main reason I have not returned to Russia in five years is because of the country’s ‘undesirable organisations’ law.”

First passed in 2015 – and recently updated with even harsher measures – the law states that any organisations in Russia whose activities “pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order, defence or security of the state” are liable to be fined or their members can face up to six years in prison. This past July,

The Moscow Times, an independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper, was declared undesirable by the authorities in Moscow.

“I’m now classed as a criminal because of science articles I published in Russia and in other media outlets,” Borissova Saleh explained.

Shortly after Putin invaded Ukraine, an estimated 7,000 Russian scientists, mathematicians and academics signed an open letter to the Russian president, voicing their public opposition to the war.

According to analysis carried out by the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, since February 2022 at least 2,500 Russian scientists have left and severed ties with Russia.

Lyubov Borusyak, a professor and leading researcher of the Laboratory of Socio-Cultural Educational Practices at Moscow City University, carried out a detailed study of Russian academics included in that mass exodus.

Most people she interviewed worked in liberal arts, humanities and mathematics. A large bulk of them fled to the USA and others took up academic positions in countries including Germany, France, Israel, the Netherlands and Lithuania. A common obstacle many faced was their Russian passport.
It’s a bureaucratic nightmare for receiving a working and living visa, Borusyak explained.

“Most of these Russian exiles abroad have taken up positions in universities that are at a lower level than they would have had in Russia, and quite a few of them have been denied the right to participate in scientific conferences and publish in international scientific journals.”

She said personal safety for academics, especially those with liberal views, is a definite concern in Russia today, where even moderate, reasonable behaviour can be deemed as extremist and a threat to national security.

“I feel anxious,” she said. “There are risks and I’m afraid they are serious.”

Hannes Jung, a retired German physicist believes it’s imperative scientists do not detach themselves from matters of politics, but that scientists should stay neutral when they are doing science.

Jung is a prominent activist and co-ordinator for Science4Peace – a cohort of scientists working in particle physics at institutions across Europe. He said their aim was “to create a forum that promotes scientific collaboration across the world as a driver for peace”.

He helped form Science4Peace shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, as he felt the West’s decision to completely sever ties with Russian scientists was counterproductive and unnecessary.

“At [German science research centre] Desy, where I previously worked, all communication channels were cut, and we were not allowed to send emails from Desy accounts to Russian colleagues,” said Jung. “Common publications and common conferences with Russian scientists were strictly forbidden, too.”

He cited various examples of scientists working together, even when their respective governments had ongoing political tensions, and, in some instances, military conflicts. Among them is the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (Sesame) in Jordan: an inter-governmental research centre that brings together many countries in the Middle East.

“The Sesame project gets people from Palestine, Israel and Iran working together,” Jung said.

The German physicist learned about the benefits of international co-operation among scientists during the hot years of the Cold War.

In 1983, when still a West German citizen, he started working for Cern, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Based on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, the inter-governmental organisation, which was founded in 1954, operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. At Cern, Jung was introduced to scientists from the German Democratic Republic, Poland and the Soviet Union. “[In] the Soviet Union the method for studying and researching physics was done in a very different way from in the West, so there was much you could learn about by interacting with Soviet scientists,” he said.

In December 2023, the council of Cern, which currently has 22 member states, officially announced that it was ending co-operation with Russia and Belarus as a response to the “continuing illegal military invasion of Ukraine”.

Jung believes Cern’s co-operation with Russian and Belarussian scientists should have continued, saying there was no security risk for Cern members working with scientists from Belarus and Russia.

“There is a very clear statement in Cern’s constitution, explaining how every piece of scientific research carried out at the organisation has no connection for science that can be used for military [purposes],” he said.

In June, the Cern council announced it would, however, keep its ongoing co-operation with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), located in Dubna, near Moscow.

“I hope Cern will continue to keep these channels open to reduce the risk for nuclear war happening,” said Jung.

Can cultural and academic boycotts work to influence social and political change? Sometimes.

They seemed to play a role, for example, in the breakup of apartheid South Africa (1948 to 1994). This topic was addressed in a paper published in science journal Nature in June 2022, by Michael D Gordin.

The American historian of science argued that for science sanctions to work – or to help produce a change of mindset in the regime – the political leadership of the country being sanctioned has to care about scientists and science. “And Russia does not seem to care,” Gordin wrote.

His article pointed to the limited investments in scientific research in Russia over the past decade; the chasing after status and rankings rather than improving fundamentals; the lacklustre response to Covid-19; and the designation of various scientific collaborations and NGOs as “foreign agents”, which have almost all been kicked off Russian soil.

Indeed, Putin’s contempt and suspicion of international scientific standards fits with his strongman theory of politics. But such nationalist propaganda will ultimately weaken Russia’s position in the ranking of world science.

Borissova Saleh said trying to create science in isolation was next to impossible.

“Science that is not international cannot and will not work. Soviet science was international and Soviet scientists were going to international scientific conferences, even if they were accompanied by the KGB,” she said.

Sanctioning Russian scientists will undoubtedly damage Russian science in the long term, but it’s unlikely to alter Russia’s present political reality.

Authoritarian regimes, after all, care about only their own personal survival.

Undercover freedom fund

Andrej Strizhak, a human rights activist and Belarus exile, uses an electric scooter to go around the streets of Vilnius’s old town.

“It is a very convenient means of transportation,” he told Index, sitting in a coffee shop at The House of the Signatories where Lithuania’s Act of Independence was signed in 1918.

Strizhak is founder of the Belarus Solidarity Foundation, Bysol, a humanitarian organisation which gives financial help to political prisoners, striking workers and other activists critical of the repressive regime of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. Recently Bysol has also focused on aid to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion that Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022.

For Strizhak, both struggles are connected.

“Belarus’s ‘freedom key’ is in Ukraine, and many Belarusians are helping fight the war in Ukraine,” he said. “If Putin fails, then Lukashenka will lose his principal ally.”

His colleague, former male model, fitness trainer and media celebrity turned political activist Andrey Tkachov, joined us in the café. Tkachov like Strizhak is in his thirties. He’s an immensely tall and striking figure, dressed in black. He oversees the management of the Medical Solidarity Fund, operating under the Bysol Foundation umbrella. He sees the conflict in stark terms.

“It is a war between good and evil. Russia is knowingly bombing hospitals and we are working on getting medical supplies and equipment.”

Bysol has raised over $10.7 million and acts as a platform for other organisations or individuals to raise funds for humanitarian causes.

Most of it has been done through cryptocurrency because, as Strizhak explained, it is “hard for the government to trace these transactions.”

During the first days of the Ukrainian war, Bysol received requests for cash to buy vehicles, drones and first aid kits; funds were needed for emergency contraceptive and rape kits for Ukrainian war victims of sexual abuse and for legal fees to pursue justice for war crimes. Within a few days, Bysol raised over $130,000 for Ukrainian humanitarian causes and for Belarusian volunteers working in Ukraine.

As the war progressed, the foundation used its money to aid wounded Belarusian fighters to obtain medical assistance, move to Poland or Lithuania and heal from PTSD. Bysol handed over radios, sets of uniforms for medical doctors and anti-thermal camouflage cloaks to the Belarusians fighting in Ukraine.
They gave others help too.

For those who refused to fight or faced repression for opposing the war, Bysol staff drafted manuals on evacuation from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. They also posted instructions in a Telegram chat group, BysolEvacuation. Users issued advice on how to leave the war zone, discussed visa procedures and shared experiences on border crossings.

Strizhak and other activists first established Bysol in August 2020, as a response to violence against the opposition after the Belarus presidential election which saw Lukashenka winning a sixth term in office. Strizhak had already been detained several times by the police for his political activities and during the election summer, friends advised him to go on “vacation” abroad. He traveled to Kyiv, hoping to spend a month in Ukraine. There, building on his humanitarian work and crowdfunding skills, Strizhak came up with the idea of a fund-raising organisation.

He was joined in Ukraine by Tkachov, with whom he had worked during the Covid-19 pandemic and who had just been released from police custody. Tkachov had stayed in Belarus and joined anti-government protests in Minsk, witnessing police using grenades and shooting at peaceful opposition.

“The day after the elections, my friend and I took a ride around Minsk to check the aftermath of the protests,” Tkachov told Index. “An OMON (special police force) car stopped us and took us to a detention centre.” Officers gave Tkachov some “special attention” for his critical political opinions. He was handcuffed and beaten.

“Some of us fainted from the pain and from the inflicted injuries. We laid in puddles of blood and urine and prayed to be alive,” he said. Eventually, he lost consciousness when a soldier stepped on his neck.

“I regained consciousness only when police brought me to the prison, and a soldier poured water on me,” he said.

Together with the other 35 detainees, he spent three days in a cell suitable to accommodate 10 people.

In the late autumn of 2020 both dissidents decided to move to Lithuania, a member state of the EU and NATO, determined to expand Bysol. “Ukraine did not feel safe enough for us,” explained Strizhak.

Strizhak first raised money through a friend in the Netherlands who opened a fundraising account on Facebook. “We couldn’t do it from Belarus or Ukraine. Only people who live in ‘the white-world’ – the USA or Western Europe – can open fundraising accounts on Facebook,” he said.

Help started pouring in and more so when they were established in Vilnius. The most active supporters of the fund were and still are the Belarusian diaspora.

Walking a thin line between publicity and safety, Bysol has come to rely on cryptocurrency. Using traditional currency, customers rely on bank services and often pay high fees for financial transactions that might take a few days to complete, but cryptocurrency is a digital currency based on a network spread across many computers, unregulated by central government authorities. Unlike traditional financial institutions, opening a cryptocurrency wallet does not require identification verification, credit, or background checks: a person needs just a laptop or a smartphone with an internet connection and there is virtually no way for the government officials to stop, censor or reverse these transactions.

People find Bysol through social media and by word of mouth and the foundation follows a rigorous verification process before providing any help.

“We can’t name recipients and they can’t say ‘Thank you’ to us,” Strizak said.

Tkachov focuses on supporting Belarusian medical professionals and medical causes.

“Medical doctors actively expressed their opposition to the government’s actions. They were the ones who saw wounded, beaten and dead protesters. They described people arriving at the hospital as if they were brought from a battlefield with gunshot wounds or limbs ripped off by grenade explosions,” he said. Many medical doctors who expressed their disagreement about the government’s actions were laid off from state-run hospitals.

The Department of Investigation Committee in Minsk has initiated criminal proceedings against Strizhak who is accused of providing “training of individuals to take part in group activities, grossly violating public order” and financing extremism. Bysol itself has been labelled an extremist organisation and Belarus has listed its founders on the country’s wanted list and the wanted list of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), made up of Russia and other ex-Soviet states still in Russia’s orbit.

Tkachov said he was always interested in history, especially events leading to the outbreak of World War II. “I could not understand why the powerful states could not prevent it,” he said. “Witnessing unfolding events in Ukraine, I finally understood it. When I think about how much more needs to be done, I worry my efforts are not enough, or are not effective enough. We need to help many people.”

Since his early years, Strizhak was determined to bring change to society: “I can’t tolerate hypocrisy, lies or double standards,” he said. He travelled to the Donbas region of Ukraine from 2017 to 2020 to document war crimes committed by pro-Russian separatists. He has mourned the death of close work partners.

Although he is now far from the war zone, he visualises his efforts with a consciousness of the samurai way of “dying before going into battle.” Like Japan’s ancient warriors, he said, he is waging his humanitarian efforts fully committed and without fear.

Report pinpoints role of likely Russian troll networks in European election disinformation

A network of accounts flooded social media with disinformation in the run-up to the European Parliamentary elections a new report has found.

The report was commissioned by the Social Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) grouping together with the Dutch delegation GroenLinks-PvdA and produced by disinformation specialisists Trollrensics.

It reveals that organised networks of thousands of accounts, which the researchers believe are of likely Russian origin, actively influenced public opinion on X in France and Germany during the elections while voters in the Netherlands, Italy and the English-speaking public were also affected by the troll networks

Trollrensics’ data analysis showed that at least 20% of all tweets about the French far-right politician Zemour came from this troll network, for example. However, the research company estimated the actual percentage is significantly higher as the networks manipulated the X algorithm to amplify specific themes.

The research also found that German political party AfD received a huge boost thanks to the troll army. At least 10.7% of the tweets about the AfD came from the disinformation network.

The network focused mainly on spreading pro-Russian propaganda, messages about anti-vaxxers with anti-vaccination narratives and anti-LGBTIQ+ messages.

Thijs Reuten, an MEP for the S&D, said, “We commissioned this independent study as we were curious about the extent of online foreign interference and how measurable it is – especially because this sometimes seems so hard to ascertain. This study has shown that significant influence took place during the European elections. Troll armies managed to make topics trend and at the same time make certain news reports less visible.”

Reuten added, “This clearly shows our democracy is vulnerable and that foreign powers are willing to spend a lot of money and effort to sow division in our population. We need to defend ourselves better against such organised attempts of foreign interference. I expect the European Commission and the intelligence services to be on top of this. Our open society is in danger if troll armies are able to manipulate social media and, therefore, the public debate”.

The report confirms concerns from European groups that large-scale troll networks from Russia were attempting to influence the outcome of the elections.

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