The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition expresses its deep concern over the legal intimidation targeting human rights defender and journalist, Abdalle Mumin. Mumin has been subject to legal communication from UK-based law firm Taylor Hampton, acting on behalf of Premier Bank, a major bank in Somalia.
Mumin is the Secretary General of Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS), a journalists’ trade union in Somalia, and his reporting has been published internationally, including by The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal. He has long faced persecution in his home country of Somalia, including arrest, jail and torture, which led him to seek asylum in the UK in 2023.
In April 2024, SJS, Mumin and his colleagues were subject to an investigation by the Somali government. A court order was issued shortly thereafter, resulting in the freezing of SJS accounts with Premier Bank. In response, Mumin published four social media posts, expressing his concerns about the bank’s business practices.
Following the publication of these posts, Mumin began receiving abusive messages and phone calls, including several demanding that he remove his social media posts. “You have not stopped insulting the government. I promise that I will come for you in the UK,” said one of the messages, which was sent by a user in the name of the Somali Deputy Minister of Information, Abdirahman Alcadaala.
Shortly thereafter, Mumin received a legal letter threatening him with a defamation action in England. The letter demanded the removal of his social media posts about Premier Bank and called on him to provide a written undertaking not to republish or repeat the defamatory publications, and agree to publish a written apology.
The letter also demanded that Mumin remove six articles that Premier Bank alleged he had published. However, Mumin has emphasised that those articles, which were published anonymously by Somali news portal Horn Observer, were not written by him.
The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition is concerned that the legal correspondence issued to Mumin bears the hallmarks of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). The social media posts are clearly on matters of public interest. The letters, sent to a litigant in person whom Taylor Hampton should have recognised would be unfamiliar with the English legal system, appear to be intended to intimidate. They were marked “Strictly private and confidential – not for publication or onward dissemination”, an undue restriction in the context of public interest speech.
The letters also sought “very substantial” damages in the UK, despite providing no evidence linking Mumin to six of the ten impugned publications. There is also an obvious imbalance of wealth and power between Mumin, a persecuted refugee, and Premier Bank, a major bank in Somalia.
We are further troubled by the surrounding context, including Mumin’s history of persecution by Somali state authorities, media reports of connections between Premier Bank and the Somali government, and communications he appears to have received from both a Somali minister and a representative of the bank. Taken together, these raise serious questions about the motivation and purpose behind this legal action.
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The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition sent a right of reply to Taylor Hampton Solicitors LLP regarding our concerns about their legal correspondence to journalist Abdalle Mumin. The firm, acting on behalf of Premier Bank, provided the following response, which we summarise below:
Taylor Hampton said that they “reject any suggestion” that their Letter of Claim to Mr Abdalle Mumin constitutes a SLAPP. They state that the correspondence was a legitimate and proportionate step taken in response to “highly defamatory” allegations of the “utmost seriousness” published by Mr Mumin. They said these allegations were false, caused serious harm to Premier Bank’s reputation, disrupted its operations, and “were capable of threatening the continued viability of an institution such as a bank.” They said their client had no choice but to comply with a lawful court order to freeze the accounts of the SJS, something that was outside of their client’s control, and gave rise to no grounds for Mr Mumin to publish false and defamatory allegations against the Bank. They said that Mr Mumin failed to make “even the most basic of checks with our client concerning the veracity of the allegations; indeed, he made none at all.”
The firm says its letter complied with the Pre-Action Protocol for defamation claims, was supported by instructions from its client, advised Mr Mumin to take legal advice, and had “good prospects of success”. They dispute that Mr Mumin was a vulnerable litigant without recourse to legal advice, noting his role as a senior journalist and trade union leader, and pointing out that as Mr Mumin is in the jurisdiction of England and Wales, he is subject to the law of the land, including defamation laws. They also state that marking the letter “Private and Confidential” was appropriate given its contents and to prevent further publication of damaging claims.
Taylor Hampton maintains that the imbalance of resources between Premier Bank and Mr Mumin does not prevent a claimant from pursuing a meritorious case to defend their reputation. They emphasise that the letter did not deter Mr Mumin from making further allegations, and conclude that the claim was “both legally and factually sound” and not an attempt to intimidate or silence him.