LONDON: Campaigners have expressed concern that UK courts are being used to silence critical reporting after a former Kurdish minister sued two journalists who accused him of misconduct, The Times reported.
Ashti Hawrami, who served as oil minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government from 2006 to 2019, is taking legal action against journalists Will Jordan and Daniel Balint-Kurti, reporters for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, over a 2021 article that alleged he had misused his power to grant oil concessions.
Hawrami, who was a major player in the Kurdish oil industry, was linked to UK MP and former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who worked as a “fixer” for oil company Gulf Keystone.
Campaigners say Hawrami’s claim is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” or SLAPP, a legal strategy designed to intimidate journalists and discourage public interest reporting.
The practice has received increasing scrutiny in the UK, with lawsuits often filed by wealthy or powerful individuals against journalists and activists, who face having their financial resources drained amid costly litigation fees.
In a letter to the UK justice secretary last month, editors from several major newspapers, including The Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian, warned that SLAPPs represent a growing threat to press freedom in the UK and Europe.
“We are deeply concerned that human rights defenders are facing prison sentences and heavy fines for exercising their right to freedom of expression and opinion,” UN experts said in a statement last year.
It is unclear if the case against Jordan and Balint-Kurti will come to court.
Hawrami’s lawyers said that they decided to sue OCCRP only after contacting the outlet to dispute the accuracy of several claims.
A spokesman for Hawrami’s lawyers, Carter Ruck, said: “There is no proper basis whatsoever to assert that this case is a SLAPP. The position is that our client only very reluctantly brought proceedings in May 2022, over an article published in May 2021, when extensive attempts to resolve his complaint, without recourse to litigation, broke down.
“As well as making false claims, the article contains significant errors which to this day have never been corrected. Our client finds himself in the very regrettable position of having been defamed and is entitled to bring legal proceedings seeking to clear his name.”
The case is being closely watched by press freedom groups and journalists, who fear that it could set a dangerous precedent for press freedom in the UK.
