Andy Hall (activist)
Migrant worker, researcher and activist / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Andrew Jonathan Hall (born 30 October 1979 in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England) is a migrant worker and labour rights activist and researcher, formerly based in South East Asia.
In early 2013 Hall was sued by Natural Fruit Company following the publication of the Finnwatch report "Cheap Has a High Price".[1] Hall claimed to have interviewed workers for the report, some of whom were undocumented migrants and reported poor working conditions, unlawfully low wages, confiscation of official documents, use of child labour and excessive overtime. Altogether Natural Fruit has brought four cases against Hall, for alleged defamation and computer crimes. Many international human rights organisations and trade unions, as well as UN agencies and the European Parliament and European Trade Commissioner, have condemned Natural Fruit's actions as judicial harassment and an attempt to silence a human rights defender, and called for the cases to be dropped.[2]
At Hall's July 2016 trial, Finnwatch testified that the report alleging human rights abuses by Natural Fruit Co was analysed, written, and published by NGO Finnwatch, not by Hall, who was hired merely as a local investigator.[3] However, Hall is identified in the report as the leader of the Finnwatch investigation in Thailand.