Global Witness - Breaking the links between natural resources, conflict and corruption

• Libel Tourism
• The Sassou Nguesso case

Global Witness investigates and exposes the activities of some of the world's most unsavoury characters, be they corrupt politicians and businessmen, the heads of organised crime networks or warlords.

Increasingly, those same characters are using the legal system to prevent us from publishing information that should be in the public domain. The easiest recourse for those with something to hide and a name to defend, not to mention a large bank balance at their disposal, is to bring a hostile libel action or an injunction against our activities. The threat to public interest and freedom of speech is real; left unchecked it will continue to infringe our most basic of rights.

When faced with these threats, we could easily bow to the pressure and back down, but that's not what we're here for. Defending ourselves has already cost us tens of thousands of pounds. Inevitably, this has placed an enormous strain on our finances, and ominously what we've experienced so far represents only the tip of the iceberg.

Article republished with permission from Private Eye. 

We recently fought off an attempt by the son of the President of the Republic of Congo to remove various documents of his from our website. These showed that in his position as a public official - he is the boss of Cotrade, the marketing arm of the state oil company - he may have used state oil revenues to fund his lavish personal lifestyle. The documents included secret company information and two years' worth of his credit card bills which showed he spent $250,000 in two years on one card alone, mainly in the designer stores of Paris, Monaco and Dubai. While Congolese oil revenue brings in $3 billion per year, 70% of the population have to survive on less than a dollar a day.

We fought off this legal challenge, and the documents are still available for all to see. However, such victories don't come cheap, and this one cost us £55,000, which we had to use core funds to cover, using money that could have been spent on our different campaigns. We do need help to recover these costs, so that we can concentrate our core funds on what we do best – changing the way the world manages natural resources. If you are able to help, please donate as much as you can afford, so that we can have the confidence to defend the next case when it comes along, as it surely will.

That's why we've launched the ‘Tilt the Balance' appeal. We're asking you to support our efforts to ensure public interest and freedom of speech win out over gagging orders and libel tourism, and to enable organisations such as Global Witness to have the funds and time to continue changing the world. By making a donation today you could ‘Tilt the Balance'.

Please act now. Thank you.

You can also make a donation by post, making your cheque payable to the Global Witness Trust and addressing it to:

PO Box 6042
London
N19 5WP

If you would prefer to make your donation by telephone or have any questions, please contact Naomi Love on +44 (0)20 7561 6376 or nlove@globalwitness.org.