Threats of attacks on the newspaper Il Tirreno and attacks on journalists of the Tuscan newspaper: Minister Luciana Lamorgese expresses solidarity with the journalists and the director of the newspaper Stefano Tamburini.
The Coordination Center for monitoring activities on acts of intimidation against journalists was summoned to the Viminale. The Order of Journalists puts up a wall to defend its colleagues.
The episodes reported by Tuscan journalists are extremely serious, having long been the target of threats and insults for the work they do in their Region. The solidarity and closeness expressed by the political world and the national and regional Order of Journalists, together with the National Federation of the Press, are unanimous. The climate of 'social' hatred and attacks that Il Tirreno journalists are forced to endure every day has pushed the Minister of the Interior to convene an urgent roundtable to monitor the phenomenon and give firm answers to defend 'freedom of the press, a pillar of democracy'. "I express my solidarity with the journalists of Il Tirreno for the very serious threats received on social media".
Minister Lamorgese wrote in a note. “The Ministry of the Interior is paying maximum attention to the protection of information operators. To prevent violence and threats, including online, I have reactivated, since January 10, 2020, the discussion table with the representative bodies of journalists and, based on the needs that emerged there, initiatives have already been launched in the territories with the closest collaboration between the Department of Public Security, the prefectures and the Order of Journalists and the National Federation of the Italian Press”, continued Minister Lamorgese, underlining “the duty of the institutions to intervene to defend freedom of the press, which represents one of the pillars of democracy”.
The President of the National Council of the Order of Journalists, Carlo Verna, spoke about the threats to Il Tirreno, speaking of “intolerable threats addressed to the newspaper” and applauding the immediate reaction of Minister Lamorgese “for the promptness with which she addressed the issue of the very serious threats sent via social media to colleagues at Il Tirreno, to whom we extend our full solidarity and closeness. At the coordination table on acts of intimidation against journalists announced by the Ministry of the Interior, we will also raise an issue that is part of the question, that of 'Far web'. It would be good to quickly develop more rigorous regulations to prevent an opportunity for greater freedom of expression from turning into the possibility of free incitement to violence”.
They go into the merits of what happened to the journalists of Il Tirreno, the president of the Tuscan Press Association, Sandro Bennucci and the secretary of the Fnsi, Raffaele Lorusso, and side with the threatened journalists: "Enough is enough now, really" they say. "We need a nice attack on the headquarters of Il Tirreno, with many dead and injured" is the threatening message, received via web, to the editorial staff of Il Tirreno in Pistoia that alarmed the Order that had hoped for a direct intervention by the Minister of the Interior, who then arrived in the afternoon. For Ast and Fnsi "wishing or even just hypothesizing that in 2021 an act like an attack could occur takes us back at least 100 years, to the darkest phase of the squadrism that ravaged the editorial offices".
All this, they underline, "while in Livorno another journalist of the newspaper directed by Stefano Tamburini was verbally attacked and threatened because he complained about the continuous copying of the articles of Il Tirreno on a site, by a trader who had also tried to hinder his work of reporting. The verbal violence that sounds like an invitation to practice physical violence, whose recent episodes unfortunately are not lacking, pushes us to ask once again for the commitment of the Institutions and the Police - they write - so that those who spread it are identified, isolated and punished".
The cases that occurred on Monday, February 22, are unfortunately not isolated, 15 days ago another reporter from Il Tirreno was attacked and threatened while doing his job, six people were identified and reported by the Digos who raised the attention, together with the Prefect of Livorno, Paolo D'Attilio, for the protection of the newspaper and its journalists. "For months, journalists have ended up in the sights of those who harbor hatred and resentment for any reason - is recalled in the joint note of Fnsi and Ast -. Threats, insults, beatings".
Solidarity and bipartisan messages to Il Tirreno and its director Tamburini have arrived from all over the Tuscan and national political world. The president of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Giani, hopes that the threat sent via the web will be quickly shed light on and the sender and responsibility will be ascertained. “The seriousness of the gesture and the words cannot be underestimated,” Giani commented in a note, “even if they were words that slipped out due to the ease with which on social media and in the anonymity of the Internet, too often everything and everyone is attacked as if nothing had happened.” After the threats received in recent weeks and months by other journalists of the newspaper, the leap is evident. “This is a real threatening message,” Giani commented, “against people and workers and against a cornerstone of democracy which is the right and duty to free and unconditioned information, the right of citizens to be informed and of journalists to inform. For this reason, I hope that the investigators will soon shed light on the episode by identifying those responsible.”
The editorial staff of Cronache della Campania expresses full solidarity, for the treacherous and dangerous attacks, to the journalists of Il Tirreno and to the director Stefano Tamburini - already in the past on the front line to defend the principles of freedom, democracy and ethics of the press - and hopes that there will be a regulatory intervention to safeguard the constitutional principles that inspire our profession and the role of the press. We firmly condemn the hatred that is unleashed every day against the courageous Tuscan journalists and against the entire category, convinced that the freedom to be informed and to inform is an essential bulwark of democracy.
Article published on 23 February 2021 - 20:48
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