World Press Freedom Day celebrated in Conselice by the journalists’ union with a conference to take stock of the profession, with journalists who are increasingly victims of attacks, including physical ones, and above all of policies that continually undermine citizens’ right to be informed “L The encirclement lasted about a quarter of an hour, after which the whole situation and the insults continued for about an hour and a half.” Chiara Caravelli, a young reporter for Resto del Carlino, is one of the two journalists who was the victim of an attack in front of the Bologna court at the beginning of April, while the hearing was underway to validate the arrest of an activist of the committees pro-Besta, accused of theft in the nearby tram construction site. She was surrounded and insulted by at least thirty people and her testimony was also reported in the council chamber of Conselice, in the province of Ravenna, where Fnsi, Assostampa Emilia-Romagna, Order of Journalists and Observatory on freedom of the press in Italy, they organized a conference, precisely on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, with numerous guests and experts to take stock of the conditions of a profession which in recent years has often ended up in the crosshairs not only of real physical and verbal attacks or signed keyboard lions, especially with the most precarious victims, but also in politics, with gag laws and threats of millionaire lawsuits have contributed to our country losing, according to the latest report by Reporters Without Borders, as many as five positions, slipping ranked 46th in the world. “I would say that perhaps we are at the lowest point in recent years as regards the climate in which we do our job, which is to inform, to guarantee a civil service, that’s how I define it – explains Paolo Berizzi, president of the Observatory and journalist of Repubblica under guard for almost six years, due to the threats received following its investigations into neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups. Freedom of information is under attack and we live in this era, in which the current government, in particular, really seems to have an allergy for those who provide information, especially for those who do investigative journalism”. So what should we do? “Fighting – concludes Alessandra Costante, Fnsi general secretary – because we are talking about a right of the people enshrined in the Constitution, in article 21, and we must absolutely guarantee that it is still observed”.
