THOUSANDS ARE expected to take to the streets of Rome, Milan, Trieste and other Italian cities today in support of a protest demonstration called by the Federation of Italian journalists (FNSI) in defence of press freedom. Chief target of the protest will be prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, accused by opponents of wanting to muzzle critical media voices.
Today’s demonstration comes at the end of a burlesque Italian summer marked by a series of scandals involving the 73-year-old prime minister, accused of consorting with “minors” and having organised regular orgies in his private residences in Rome and Sardinia. By way of response, Mr Berlusconi has sued newspapers in Italy, France and Spain for their coverage of the affair, a move which many critics deem to be intimidatory.
The build-up to today’s march has been particularly heated, with government and opposition figures arguing bitterly about the contents of a prime-time news programme, Annozero, aired on state broadcaster RAI 2 on Thursday night and watched by more than seven million viewers. In the programme, two call girls, Patrizia D’Addario and Barbara Montereale, repeated previous claims that they had attended “parties” last autumn at the prime minister’s private Rome residence, Palazzo Grazioli.
Furthermore, 42-year-old Ms D’Addario contradicted previous statements by the prime minister in which he said he did not know that she or any of the other women at his parties were upmarket prostitutes.
“It seemed like a harem,” she said. “There were 20 girls, the prime minister and Tarantini [the Bari-based businessman accused of having procured the girls for the prime minister]. He [Mr Berlusconi] knew that I was a call girl. I was pleased to stay the night with him and that he took an interest in me,” said Ms D’Addario, who claims that Mr Berlusconi promised to help her out with problems linked to a family building project.
Barbara Montereale, who accompanied Ms D'Addario to Palazzo Grazioli on November 4th, the night of the US election count, and who has also claimed that everyone at dinner that night knew that Ms D'Addario was a working "call girl", told Annozero: "If Tarantini had not paid me, I wouldn't have gone. All the girls knew that if they were willing to stay the night at Palazzo Grazioli, then they would receive an envelope with €5,000 in it."
Although the “Bari-gate” scandal has received ample international coverage, this week’s Annozero programme represented only the second time this summer that Ms D’Addario was able to make her allegations on state television. Critics of Mr Berlusconi argue that he operates a stranglehold on terrestrial Italian TV, given that he owns the three biggest commercial channels, while as prime minister he exerts huge influence over news coverage on state broadcaster RAI.
To some extent, the London-based media watchdog Freedom House would appear to agree, since it currently rates Italy's media as only "partially free", placing it 73rd of 195 countries, just above Bulgaria in its "freedom" listings. Inevitably, supporters of Mr Berlusconi totally disagree, pointing out that, were it not for de facto press freedom, a programme like this week's Annozerowould never be aired.
In reality, the Berlusconi camp did everything in its power to block the programme.
Today’s protest comes on the day after parliament passed a controversial government-sponsored “tax shield” Bill which opposition figures claim will serve as a tax dodgers’ amnesty, favouring both tax evasion and mafia money laundering. In essence, the legislation imposed a 5 per cent charge on previously undeclared foreign “savings”.
Today's main protest rally in Piazza Del Popolo, Rome, is due to be addressed by, among others, Nobel laureate Dario Fo and award-winning anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano, author of the best-seller Gomorrah.