Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world. It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments in the field.
“As international organizations, we were not aware that media content was disappearing due to legal threats,” human rights activist and lawyer Flutura Kusari told CGFoE of the time before journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in Malta. “It is tragic to think that it took Daphne’s life to address SLAPPs.”
Flutura Kusari, Senior Legal Advisor for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, has helped launch Europe’s movement to counter SLAPPs, strategic lawsuits against public participation. Co-creator of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe and a Council of Europe legal expert, Kusari co-drafted the CoE’s Recommendation on SLAPPs and contributed to the drafting of the EU Directive on SLAPPs.
In an interview with CGFoE’s Senior Communications Manager Marija Šajkaš, Kusari spoke about the anti-SLAPP movement and its progress—“one of the biggest achievements in media freedom in Europe in the last half-decade”—as well as the role courts play in protecting media freedom. Find an abridged excerpt below and the full interview here.
We at CGFoE celebrate the work of women human rights defenders like Flutura Kusari, who advance freedom of expression, daily and tirelessly. To mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, we will be releasing a new Special Collection paper—a gender-focused analysis of freedom of expression case law. Stay tuned: How do women experience the exercise of their right to freedom of expression? Some answers from Court rulings will be available next week.
Flutura Kusari is an international human rights activist and lawyer, who was recognized by the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her outstanding contributions to media freedom, democracy, and civil society in Kosovo and Europe.
Marija Šajkaš: You are a co-creator of Europe’s first coordinated anti-SLAPP movement. What have you achieved so far, and what is next?
Flutura Kusari: Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe emerged after Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated. As international organizations, we were not aware that media content was disappearing due to legal threats. Journalists refused to write about certain individuals because they knew they would be sued and had very limited resources to fight back. So we advocated, with the great support of Daphne’s sister Corinne Vella and her son Matthew Caruana Galizia, to convince European institutions to put in place European laws and standards to counter SLAPPs.
Have any states provided promising examples in their transposition of the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive into national law?
As countries are working towards transposition, from what I know, Ukraine has undertaken the most comprehensive transposition of European standards and could be followed as an example. At the same time, Kosovo became the first country in Europe where the strategy of the Kosovo Judicial Council (the body governing courts) gives priority to SLAPP cases, meaning judges are required to prioritize them—again, another example to follow. Other countries, such as Poland and Estonia, are also working towards transposition.
I consider this one of the biggest achievements in media freedom in Europe in the last half-decade. It is tragic to think that it took Daphne’s life to address SLAPPs, and I will forever be grateful to her family for allowing us to use her name to achieve something that will help ensure that other journalists do not experience the same.
Read the full interview on our website.
Photo: courtesy of Flutura Kusari
United States
Kohls v. Bonta
Decision Date: August 29, 2025
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California held that California Assembly Bill 2839 was unconstitutional and permanently enjoined its enforcement because it violated the First Amendment and related constitutional free speech protections. The case arose from challenges brought by political satirists and content creators who argued that the statute impermissibly restricted and compelled political expression by prohibiting the distribution of “materially deceptive” election-related media, including satire and parody created using artificial intelligence, based on speculative harms to candidates’ reputations, electoral prospects, or public confidence in elections. The central issue before the Court was whether the State could regulate digitally altered political speech through content-based prohibitions and mandatory disclaimers without infringing constitutionally protected freedom of expression. In resolving this issue, the Court reasoned that AB 2839 imposed content, viewpoint, and speaker-based restrictions on core political speech, and failed strict scrutiny because it was not narrowly tailored to serve the State’s interest in election integrity. The Court further held that it impermissibly compelled speech through burdensome disclaimer requirements, and relied on vague standards that chilled lawful expression. In its concluding remarks, the Court characterized AB 2839 as suffering from “a compendium of traditional First Amendment infirmities” and emphasized that while deepfakes posed real challenges, “the antidote is not prematurely stifling content creation” but encouraging “counter speech, rigorous fact-checking, and the uninhibited flow of democratic discourse.”
European Court of Human Rights
Costa i Rosselló v. Spain
Decision date: February 27, 2025
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) declared inadmissible the applications filed by Members of the Parliament of Catalonia who challenged the Spanish Constitutional Court’s orders preventing the Bureau of the Parliament from accepting draft resolutions debating Catalonia’s right to self-determination and criticizing the monarchy. The Members of the Parliament argued that these measures violated Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (right to free elections) and Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR (freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association). The Court held that the measures taken by Spanish authorities were foreseeable, had a clear legal basis, pursued legitimate aims, and were proportionate, noting that the resolutions circumvented constitutional channels. The ECtHR observed that the Constitutional Court acted, in extreme circumstances, to protect the Constitution as the guarantor of the territorial integrity of the State.
India
Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India
Decision Date: February 15, 2024
The Supreme Court of India held that the Electoral Bond Scheme and related statutory amendments violated Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution because they denied voters access to information about political funding. The petitioners challenged a legal framework that enabled anonymous donations to political parties, removed donor-specific disclosure obligations, and allowed unlimited corporate contributions. The Union of India argued that the scheme protected donor privacy, prevented the use of black money, and ensured transparency through banking channels and aggregate disclosures. The Court held that the voter’s right to information is an integral part of freedom of speech and expression because meaningful electoral choice depends on access to information about the financial interests shaping political parties and governance. It further held that the non-disclosure regime created a system of complete non-disclosure vis-à-vis voters and failed the proportionality standard. The Court rejected the State’s justifications based on curbing black money and donor privacy, holding that the scheme merely replaced one form of opacity with another and that political contributions do not attract the same level of privacy protection as the secret ballot. The Court accordingly struck down the impugned scheme and amendments, ordered the State Bank of India to stop issuing electoral bonds and disclose details of purchases and encashments to the Election Commission of India, and directed the Election Commission to publish that information on its website.
“UNDER PRESSURE”: Report on the Situation of Threatened Cartoonists Around the World (2023-2025). “[C]artoons have always been a barometer of democracy,” writes Kak, President of Cartooning for Peace, in an introduction to a new report on threatened cartoonists worldwide. Opening with the alarming decline of expressive freedoms in the US, the report presents the results of groundbreaking research on the online experiences of cartoonists and reveals a worrying level of online censorship and threats that often go unnoticed. Compiled by Cartooning for Peace and Cartoonists Rights in partnership with CGFoE, Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, FORHUM, and Reporters Without Borders, the full report is published in English and French, with the Executive Summary available in Spanish and Arabic on the CGFoE website. Learn more here.
● Israel/US Attacks on Iran: FIDH Calls for Protection of Civilians, Respect of International Law. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) condemns the joint US-Israel strikes on Iran, along with Iran’s ensuing attacks on at least seven states in the region, stressing violations of international law. “Foreign interference or military action cannot address decades of serious and systematic human rights violations—many amounting to the most serious international crimes—committed by the Iranian authorities,” said FIDH Honorary President Karim Lahidji. “Democratic transition in Iran must be underpinned by respect for human rights and a broad-based transitional justice process, not more conflict and human rights violations, and certainly not through acts of aggression against Iran.”
● ECtHR: End Legal Attacks for Reporting Sexual Violence. Intervening before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), ARTICLE 19 argues for a robust and “victim-sensitive approach” to defamation cases involving sexual harassment and gender-based abuse. The case, Meskhidze v. Georgia, concerns a public service employee who reported sexual harassment by a superior and was sued for defamation over two TV interviews. In an intervention on behalf of ARTICLE 19, Senior Director for Law and Policy JUDr. Barbora Bukovska underscores the growing need for “a clear standard requiring domestic authorities to treat such expression [on gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment] as a protected form of reporting on wrongdoing.”
● Afghanistan: Accountability Needed for Gender Persecution, Other Grave Crimes. At the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged action in the protection of Afghanistan’s women and girls as the Taliban continues to carry out gender persecution in the country. HRW emphasized the Taliban’s new oppressive criminal procedure code, which prescribes harsh punishments for criticism of the de facto leadership and names only “excessive” beating as domestic violence against women, denying survivors of other abuse access to protection or justice. “Afghanistan is a graveyard for human rights,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk at the Council’s session. “The system of segregation is reminiscent of apartheid, based on gender rather than race.”
Last Thursday, February 26, hundreds of Columbia students, faculty, and community members held an emergency rally at the university gates, protesting the arrest of a student by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (The student was later released.) In Argentina that day, 12 Greenpeace activists were arrested while protesting on the steps of Congress against a bill set to allow mining in areas surrounding glaciers; a cameraman, also detained, was injured by the police. In Argentina on Friday, as the Senate passed a repressive labor reform into law, police and protesters clashed near Congress; at least three were arrested. Around the world these past days, US and Israel strikes on Iran sparked protests—and division: while some rallies deplored the attacks, many demonstrations expressed support.
Correction: Last week’s Protest Monitor edition misstated the name of Argentina’s non-governmental human rights organization. The Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, not the National Human Rights Assembly, condemned “all repressive actions by the State” during recent protests in Argentina.
On Sunday, March 1, in Niš, Serbia, students held the “The Country Is Us” rally, marking one year since the city’s largest protest. The rally is part of the nationwide student-led protest movement—sparked by the Novi Sad railway station tragedy—in response to which the state has cracked down on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Background & Demands: On November 1, 2024, a concrete canopy collapse killed 16 people at the main railway station in Novi Sad. Public outrage pointed to corruption and forced the Construction Minister to resign. Protests began with daily student-led road blockades and soon spread to over 400 towns and cities in Serbia. Protesters have demanded accountability for the tragedy and anti-corruption action, later evolving to include a call for snap elections.
Significance: The movement is Serbia’s biggest wave of civic unrest in decades, gathering over 100,000 at earlier demonstrations and 300,000 at the most massive rally in the country’s modern history in Belgrade in March 2025.
Some Results: Serbia’s Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, along with the Mayor of Novi Sad, resigned in January 2025.
State Response: President Aleksandar Vučić accused protesters of trying to overthrow the government with foreign backing. Authorities have resorted to excessive force—beatings, tear gas, stun grenades—causing serious injuries to peaceful demonstrators; hundreds have been arrested. Officials face allegations of deploying a sonic weapon for crowd control in early 2025. Attacks on independent media, labeled as “enemies” of the state by officials, have surged at protests, online, including cyberattacks, and offline, including physical violence, in a climate of increased surveillance and intensified pressure on schools and civil society.
FoE Violations: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for prompt, impartial investigations into alleged arbitrary arrests and unnecessary or disproportionate use of force at protests. Human rights groups have warned that escalating media freedom violations in Serbia amount to a state of emergency for independent journalism.
Call for Proposals: Promoting Freedom of Expression and Media Freedom in Pakistan. The EU will support civil society projects promoting freedom of expression and media freedom in Pakistan and has launched a call for proposals. Concept notes are due by April 21, 2026. Learn more here.
This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression. For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.
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