As pressure mounts on Mauro Masi, CEO of Rai TV, Giulio D’Eramo looks at why journalists see the government-owned network as a threat to freedom of expression
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This is a guest post by Cecilia Anesi and Giulio Rubino
A rally “for life” takes place today, starting in Terzigno, a small city of a complex of three, with Boscoreale and Boscotrecase, a few kilometres away from Naples. Protesters will come from the whole of Campania region, since many feel Terzigno’s fight against a new landfill is their fight for an alternative way of managing waste.
Citizens of the three towns, located at the bottom of Vesuvius National Park, have been in turmoil for days, as the Italian government attempts to open a new landfill in the park.
Vesuvius National Park already holds a major landfill, built by the government two years ago, breaching the law that institutes national parks. Moreover, this landfill contains a mix of unprocessed solid and toxic waste, and although this breaches EU regulations in matter
of waste, the landfill was built — as others — by issuing an “emergency decree”. Moreover, the same emergency decree (dlg 90/2008 issued by Berlusconi’s Government) turned landfills and incinerators into “military areas” protected by state secrecy laws (issued by the Prodi government) and thus inscrutable for the people, civil authorities and the press.
A week ago the “Movimento per la difesa del territorio/Area Vesuviana” (Movement for the defence of Vesuvius Area) noticed the increase in the number of waste trucks that were entering the landfill. Naples was once again covered in rubbish, and the government had to quickly find a solution before a media scandal would explode again.
The solution was found in sending as many trucks as possible to Terzigno’s landfill. Hundred of citizens of all ages started blocking the entrance, scared that as soon as that landfill was been full the government would inaugurate a new landfill in a quarry few hundred metres away.
On the second day, riot police were called in the scene. On mainstream Italian media the protesters were shown for a few seconds, and although the reasons of the protest weren’t explained in depth, it was possible to see some seriously injured people. The blocade was violently removed by riot police, and the rubbish trucks were escorted inside and outside the landfill as if they were carrying gold. People were prevented from peacefully demonstrating, and from physically blocking with their bodies the access to trucks into the landfill.
Locals claim to have the right to protest, as it is the state that is acting against the law — firstly by opening a landfill in a national park, secondly by making it wihout following EU regulations, thirdly by breaching the internationally recognised right to health and life, and last but not least, because the government is not acting transparently and democractically by preventing both citizens and the press from entering the landfills of Campania.
Moreover, people have the right to protest because it is a fundamental right included into the Italian Consitution, and Berlusconi’s government is simply ignoring it.
But, as the citizens of Terzigno and other places of Campania will say, when the State thinks as a business and acts as a dictatorship, democracy can be proclaimed dead.
The Italian government is to stall plans to ban intercept evidence from court cases. Giulio D’Eramo reports
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Media strikes over Silvio Berlusconi’s ‘gag law’ — Italian journalists fall silent to protest PM’s wiretap bill. Benedetta Brevini reports
It’s a first, an official day of media silence in Italy. Just a taste of what could become a permanent silence, if the prime minister’s “gag law” is not stopped in time. Italian newsstands are empty today because reporters and editors on all major newspapers began a 24-hour strike yesterday and radio, TV and internet journalists are due to join the protest today. The media are protesting against a law that will seriously compromise freedom of speech in Italy. Even in a polarised country like Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy, this strike is extraordinary, and not just for its scale. It represents the final act of months of campaigns, debates and appeals. Opposition to the legislation has united journalists, magistrates, policemen, publishers and civil society organisations for the first time.
The measures, passed by the senate in June, will limit journalists’ freedom to investigate, but will also restrict magistrates’ criminal probes. The bill restricts police use of wiretaps in a move Berlusconi has cast as protecting citizen’s privacy. Critics point out it would also protect Italy’s scandal prone prime minister. The proposed curb on the use of wiretaps during investigations will limit the number of days police are allowed to intercept communications. Under the current system, 18-month warrants are the norm, but the new measures will allowing monitoring for only 75 days.
The new law would curb the use of wiretaps during investigations, under the current system, 18-month warrants are the norm, but the new measures will limit the number of days’ worth of communication interceptions to 75 days. All these measures have been heavily criticised by the police and legal authorities. Wiretaps have traditionally played a crucial role in Italian criminal investigations and have led to the arrest of high profile mafia bosses. On a visit to Rome in June, the US Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer expressed concerns over the bill. He explained that “from a prosecutor’s point of view, you don’t want anything to occur that prevents the Italians from doing as good a job (in fighting organised crime) as they have in the past”.
The law will also undoubtedly curtail freedom of expression, a right that in Italy is protected by article 21 of the constitution. Journalists would risk jail and publishers could be fined up to €450,00 for reporting the contents of wiretaps before a defendant is sent to trial. Italy has one of the slowest justice systems in the world and this could mean that Italian citizens would only learn about cases of public interest after a four-or-five-year delay, if ever.
Fortunately, the mounting dissent has gone beyond Italian borders. Last month, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE) representative on freedom of the media Dunja Mijatovic condemned the bill, explaining that “the draft law” “contradicts OSCE commitments, as it prohibits the use of some confidential sources and materials which may be necessary for meaningful investigative journalism”. Calls for intervention by the European Union have also not gone unheard. On 14 June, a group of members of the European Parliament, captained by Jean Marie Cavada, urged member states “to monitor and ensure full compliance with the principle of media independence by fully enforcing article 11 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights” and “to prevent undue interference in the work of journalists and media”. This is a plea that obviously refers to the Italian situation. And, in June, the European commissioner Viviane Reding assured opponents that once the law is adopted, the EU “will closely review the text” of the law and “will check it against the principle of press and information freedom, always defended by the European Commission”. In spite of the intense opposition to the bill, the legislative process runs on unaffected and the discussion will resume in the Chamber of Deputies on 29 July.
Today’s strike is the media’s last ditch attempt to stop the measures and to raise awareness among Italian citizens. In a country where readership of newspapers is among the lowest of Europe and where television is directly or indirectly controlled by the prime minister, is not always easy to get the message through. Yet the daily newspaper La Repubblica expressed its hope that “the media blackout will speak to the public and the citizens will finally know that there is a problem they should be concerned with.” Let’s just hope that the media silence isn’t permanent.
Benedetta Brevini is a journalist and researcher in European media policy and politics at the University of Westminster, London. She has worked as a journalist in Milan, New York and London.