This is the best summary I could come up with:

The number of abusive lawsuits against journalists and human rights defenders increased to a record 161 in 2022, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE).

CASE, in partnership with legal experts and the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, analysed a total of 820 litigations, but said that the true number of SLAPPs is likely to be much higher.

According to CASE, 2022 saw a significant number of SLAPPs lodged in Malta, France, Croatia, Greece, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Georgia.

The issue is of high importance in Malta, where journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia faced 43 civil and five criminal lawsuits at the time of her murder in 2017.

The European Commission is trying to restrict the use of these lawsuits and in April put forward proposals for an anti-SLAPP Directive, known as Daphne’s Law, in honour of Caruana Galizia.

But there are fears European member states, which form the Council of the EU, will attempt to water down the Directive’s ambitions to safeguard journalists and media freedom during trilogue negotiations.

The original article contains 648 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

I would have preferred if the title of this article indicated the targets of these SLAPP suits: journalists and human rights defenders.

Reading the article, I was reminded of Daphne Caruana Galizia. She was the brave investigative reporter who brought the Panama Papers to light and did the right thing. Alas, it cost her her life.