A tailored and tight suit, almost suffocating, and a tape measure that prevents opening the mouth is the “look” that the Spanish actor Javier Bardem creates for the British actress Yasmin Finney in the new global Greenpeace campaign. The outfit represents the “gag demands” that large corporations use to silence those who denounce their polluting activity.
The organization calls to resist the pressures with the short thriller “SLAPP Suit”, created by the creative agency Don’t Panic and the production company Partizan. With it, he dramatizes the threat posed by abusive SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuits, a resource that, according to Greenpeace, billionaires and multinationals are using against activists, journalists or NGOs to drown them in legal costs and exhaust their time and resources and, consequently, undermine their spirit and efforts.
“They want to silence you. Talking is scary, but the cost of staying silent is even greater”Greenpeace commented through its LinkedIn profile. “Javier Bardem and Yasmin Finney have joined Greenpeace to expose how corporate bullies are using SLAPP lawsuits to bury climate action and silence the truth. Now is the time to resist.”.
“The global threat posed by corporate intimidation tactics, such as SLAPP lawsuits, poses an existential crisis to the freedom of expression and protest of all those who dare to speak out against the powerful, regardless of whether Greenpeace agrees with them or not.“; commented Susannah Compton, Director of the Civil Resistance and Freedoms program at Greenpeace International, in a statement. ““If we do not defend our right to resist, we hand the future over to a few oligarchs who see power as a tool to build an empire, rather than a shared responsibility.”.
The organization specifies the message in the American oil and gas pipeline company Energy Transfer, which it assures has been filing abusive lawsuits against Greenpeace in the United States and Greenpeace International for almost a decade. He considers that they are attempts to silence, among other things, the protests of the Standing Rock movement against the Dakota Access pipeline, which thousands of people have opposed for years due to the risks that its passage through Lake Oahe entails in water contamination. This legal dispute includes a ruling that forces the activist organization to pay $345 million.
“Corporate abusers are instrumentalizing the legal system to silence the truth”
However, it also mentions the oil majors Shell, Total and Eni, which they claim have filed lawsuits against Greenpeace offices in recent years. “Corporate abusers are instrumentalizing the legal system to silence the truth. They use abusive lawsuits to silence anyone who raises their voice for the common good” Greenpeace commented on Instagram.The planet cannot be protected if polluting companies are allowed to turn the courts into a playground for corporate abusers and billionaires. Their goal is to make reporting so costly that ordinary people are too afraid to risk it.”.
The short film is part of a broader campaign, articulated under the concept “Time to resist,” and which encourages people to stand up to the control that, according to Greenpeace, billionaires and large corporations are taking over social rights and freedoms. “They use their immense fortunes to dismantle regulations, influence political candidates who defend their interests, control public debate through media purchases, and silence dissent with intimidation tactics.“, comments the organization. “But they made a mistake: they underestimated our collective power of resistance. Even amid this rise of authoritarianism, more and more people believe in the power and hope of action. While they foment division, we are building a movement“, they point out, encouraging users to join Greenpeace.
Thus, it has carried out actions focused on specific figures, such as the one recently carried out against Kelcy Warren, Co-Founder of Energy Transfer. The organization believes that the executive is behind the major expansion of Waterford airport in Ireland, near his private castle, which would accelerate the impact of climate change in the area.
