09. 11. 2005

NEW STRIKE OF ITALIAN JOURNALISTS

ROME, November 9, 2005 – Italian journalists started a two-day job walkout today, displeased with the contract renewal talks. The journalists noted that, despite the proposed increase, the wages were still too low and demanded the improvement of working conditions for journalists, especially freelancers. During the strike, most newspaper editions will be stopped. The court in Rome ordered Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to pay 16.855 Euros of court expenses to journalists that were forced to leave RAI after his criticizing of some of the shows that had mocked him. The court found that the journalist Marco Travaglio, who questioned Berlusconi’s money origin, which made him the wealthiest man in Italy, in the television program “Satyricon” on March 14, 2001, conveyed a “legitimate political criticism to Silvio Berlusconi”. The court also ruled that the statements of the “Satyricon” editor Daniele Lutazzi, who was thrown out of RAI for his frequent challenges of Berlusconi’s conducts, “were satirical, but not offensive”. The court’s verdict obliged the Italian national television to reinstate journalist Michele Santoro on his journalistic activity, who was in the meantime elected member to the European Parliament. Santoro resigned from his euro-parliamentary office, and participated on “RockPolitik”, a controversial TV show hosted by Adriano Celentano, watched by around 12 million viewers every Thursday. The Italian Academy Award winner Roberto Benigni has recently derided Prime Minister Berlusconi in the same show, inviting him publicly to come to the show and say all he has to say.