On the first day of the workshop “Strengthening Independent Journalism in Moldova: Building Resilience Against Legal, Digital, and Physical Threats”, held on February 20-21 in Chisinau by the Center for Independent Journalism (Centrul Pentru Jurnalism Indipendent – CJI) in collaboration with Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), and ActiveWatch (AW), SLAPPs were discussed.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLPs) arise from the desire of powerful individuals, often businessmen or politicians, to prevent discussion on issues of public interest. These are generally one or more legal actions (often in the form of defamation suits or damages) designed to intimidate individuals seeking to participate in public interest debates, accompanied by financial and psychological pressure.

“To facilitate the identification of SLAPPs,” explained Sielke Kelner of OBCT, “there is a non-exhaustive list of 10 indicators.” These include the exploitation of an imbalance of power; the partial or total groundlessness of the plaintiff’s arguments; the request for disproportionate, excessive, or unreasonable remedies; and the use of delaying tactics; the use of intimidation, harassment, or threats; the presence of similar actions taken previously; the harassing action directly aimed at limiting free speech, activism, or journalism on issues of public interest; the focus on the intimidating effect; and the abusive nature of the request.

SLAPPs have been a well-known phenomenon in the United States since the 1980s, but European awareness of the issue only emerged after the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Caruana Galizia herself was the victim of 47 SLAPPs, many of which were filed by ministers of the then Maltese government. When she died, her bank accounts had been frozen by Maltese courts following foreclosure requests filed by then-Minister of Economy Chris Cardona and his assistant Joseph Gerada. The decision was made in response to a report of their visit to a brothel in Germany.

Only then did the European debate on SLAPPs begin. The Commission issued a Recommendation in 2022, and a Directive in 2024. The Recommendation has been applicable from its adoption on April 27, 2022.

The Directive was adopted on April 11, 2024, and has been in force since May 6, 2024. In parallel, on April 5, 2024, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted Recommendation CM/Rec(2024)2 on combating strategic legal actions against public participation (SLAPP). The deadline for national transposition of the EU Directive is May 7, 2026.

SLAPP cases suffered by Moldovan newsrooms

In the second part of the workshop, Cristina Durnea (CJI) presented some SLAPP cases suffered by Moldovan newsrooms in recent years. One of these, Cu Sens, was taken to court by Valeriu Guzun, the principal of the private high school “Da Vinci”, charged with “money laundering” and “tax evasion”.

Valeriu Guzun has reportedly taken the journalists who wrote two articles on the Cu Sens portal and the editorial staff to court with four vexatious lawsuits, filed by himself, the Da Vinci High School, and two other companies he heads. The contested articles were based on public information published by several other media outlets. The legal proceedings were preceded by a cease-and-desist letter requesting disproportionate damages, and in court, Guzun’s lawyers cited television reports from Jurnal TV, another editorial staff, as evidence of Cu Sens‘ liability.

“There’s no need to be alarmed when you receive requests with a lot of zeros,” explained Cristina Durnea. Often, compensation requests are unsuccessful in court because a law in the Republic of Moldova requires those filing the lawsuit to pay a fee proportional to the compensation requested. This discourages many SLAPP authors, but not the wealthiest, who often spend money with the sole aim of creating problems for journalists and NGOs. Moreover, in 2006, Donald Trump himself admitted to suing journalist Timothy L. O’Brien for his book “Trumpnation: The Art of Being Donald” with the sole purpose of making his life difficult.

The news outlets that received SLAPPs in Moldova include RISE, Ziarul de Gardă, and Jurnal TV, many of those which produce investigative reporting. For example, RISE was sued by businessman Eduard Tviordohleb, although the Supreme Court rejected the charges and ordered the latter to pay legal costs. Among the SLAPP participants was Ilan Șor, who sued RISE for an investigation linking him to cocaine trafficking networks, claiming the article was defamatory. Șor filed the lawsuit in 2021 after the article was announced on social media, even before its publication. In 2022, a Chisinau court rejected Șor’s claim as unfounded.

Finally, in September 2025, politician Nicolae Pascaru, under investigation for his role in the nationalist organization Scutul Moldovenesc and his youth paramilitary training activities with ties to pro-Russian networks, publicly called for “the dismantling of the lies spread, both by RISE Moldova and by every media outlet that republished the material citing the source. I demand that this be done within two days. Delaying the denial for up to 15 days will be considered a deliberate attempt to damage the reputation of the Alliance of Moldovans party by discrediting me as a candidate.”

According to Pascaru: “For the damage done to the party in the midst of the election period, I personally and the lawyers of the Alliance of Moldovans will file lawsuits against every media outlet that spread false information and failed to debunk it until the day of the election silence. We will seek in court not only the refutation of the manipulated data, but also compensation for campaign expenses and lost revenue, in the form of state funding we did not receive, calculated on the basis of 2% of the electorate’s vote, multiplied by four years.” The statement did not result in legal action, but its intimidating tone fits the typical modus operandi of SLAPPs.

Awareness of SLAPPs is unfortunately still low in the Republic of Moldova. For outlets that often lack the funding to do their job, the prospect of legal costs and lengthy court proceedings hangs like a sword of Damocles.

By the workshop participants’ own admission, although the pro-European government that has governed the country since 2021 has improved the journalistic climate, there are still numerous SLAPP cases in the country. Organizations like the Center for Independent Journalism support journalists who have been victims of SLAPPs with knowledge and advice to combat the phenomenon.