European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Sign for Roberto Saviano- with update

by de Gondi
Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 05:26:08 AM EST

An appeal for Roberto Saviano has been made by several Nobel winners. Roberto Saviano has declared his desire to leave Italy after repeated death threats and tentative evidence to carry out the threat with the use of explosives by the end of the year.

Roberto Saviano is under death threats for denouncing the criminal deeds of the Camorra in his book Gomorra, translated and read all over the world. His freedom is under threat as well as his autonomy as a writer, his chances to meet his family, to enjoy a social life, to take part in public life, to travel in his own country.
A young writer, guilty of having investigated organized crime, revealing its methods and its structure, is forced to live a hidden, underground life, while the Camorra bosses send him death threats from prison ordering him to stop writing for his newspaper, La Repubblica, and to keep silent.
The State must make every effort to protect Saviano and to defeat the Camorra. But this is not a mere police case. It's a problem of democracy. Saviano's freedom and safety concerns everyone of us as citizens.
Signing this appeal we intend to take charge of it, as a personal commitment, urging the State at the same time to assume its responsibilities because it's intolerable that something like this can happen in Europe in 2008.
DARIO FO
MIKHAIL GORBACIOV
GUNTHER GRASS
RITA LEVI MONTALCINI
ORHAN PAMUK
DESMOND TUTU

You can sign the letter here.

(More beneath the fold...)

Promoted with fold inserted by DoDo edited by afew

As the Minister of Interior has noted, Saviano would not be safe anywhere in the world- especially after his declaration that he would like to get back on the reporter's beat and investigate the international ramifications of Italian organized crime.

I'm afraid that's wishful thinking. He's too well known, easily identified. In that the Camorra has won: He can no longer work anonymously on the beat. Fortunately, he continues to write exceptional scoops.

Other than Saviano I want to recall the many courageous reporters who continue their work against the Italian mafias and their political accomplices at great personal risk.

I have also signed the letter with them in mind since Saviano represents them as well as the dozens of courageous reporters and activists who have been slaughtered by the mafias these past decades.

You can sign the letter here.

UPDATE: In the first day over 100,000 people signed the appeal. The initiative has also been taken up by numerous foreign newspapers, /El Pais, Courrier International, Nouvelle Observateur, Al-Arabiya/ and reported by the Cnn.

Other prominent writers have signed, most notably Nobel winner José Saramago as well as Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, Martin Amis, Chuck Palahniuk, Nathan Englander, Ian McEwan, Jonathan Safran Foer, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Javier Marias.

Source: Per Saviano in campo gli scrittori boom di adesioni all'appello dei Nobel

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Sign for Roberto Saviano- with update | 17 comments (17 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 1)

Thanks for this, de Gondi.

Do you mind if I reorganize it a bit for the front page?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 05:14:40 AM EST

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 0)

Ah, sorry, I did it in the meantime without asking or looking at your comment.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 05:30:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 0)

Done again ;)

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 05:42:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (4.00 / 3)

No problem with me. Once Italy held the pro capita record for assassinating reporters, now with Russia,the ex-Soviets and elsewhere, it's no longer the case.

by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 06:07:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 1)

Signed!

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

by Melanchthon on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 06:11:15 AM EST

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 0)

Me too.

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 06:21:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 0)

done

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 06:39:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 0)

Scuse ignorance of Italian, but there are four fields and I can only guess at what two of them are for

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 07:43:21 AM EST

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 0)

Nome = first name
Cognome = surname (family name)

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 07:48:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 1)

Sorry! (but then that's Repubblica's job- I also reworded their English translation.)

There are three fields with an asterick which is the universal sign for "obligatory."

They are as afew notes "name" and "surname" plus "city (of residence)". There is also a field for "profession."

The fine print is a legal reminder that all personal data is deposited with the Espresso-Repubblica group and will be only used exclusively for this initiative, etc, etc.

by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 08:20:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 1)

Thanks for the explanation, and thanks for the diary.

Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.

Frank Delaney ~ Ireland

by siegestate (siegestate or beyondwarispeace.com) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 11:28:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (4.00 / 4)

The LA Times has a good article up on Roberto Saviano from yesterday's edition.

Fighting Italian mob with words.

by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 10:48:13 AM EST

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 1)

Great article. Just ordered his book- one of those things one means to do for months, but that slips by--. Thanks for reminding me about this brave and valuable man.
Also signed, but it seems so little to do.

Grabbing what you can, as John Ruskin said, isn't any less wicked when you grab it with the power of your brains than with the power of your fists.

by geezer in Paris (risico at wanadoo(flypoop)fr) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 03:44:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (4.00 / 3)

For the past 40 years Italian mafia reporters have been left alone. Once assassinated, they were often smeared. Impastato was depicted as a leftist terrorist who blew himself up to derail a train. Fava's murder was attributed to an irate lover or gambling debts. The smear campaigns involved corrupt magistrates, investigative police and complacent journalists- anything to take the spotlight off the mafia.

Times have changed. We're not leaving these courageous reporters alone. And as I said, Saviano is not the only one out there- nor is italy no longer the only country where reporters are murdered and smeared.

So every signature is a another voice.

by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 09:21:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (4.00 / 5)

A recent video interview with Saviano:

Camorra is a European problem.

Must say I'm feeling kinda-worried about him even apart from the death-threat danger - I've seen him on TV various times, he was looking great around the time the film-version of Gomorra came out but since then he's changed enormously, a black pall seems to have fallen over him: he's lost a lot of weight but not in a "healthy" way - now looking so very thin jagged hunched tense haggard, skin pallid and darkened at the same time with a dull verdigris patina to it like a tarnished coin. In the most recent glimpses on TV he looked sickly and frail surrounded by all those hulking cops and bodyguards - reminded me of an Ecce Homo taken down from the cross.

The loneliness, the cut-offness, the bitterness of all those closed doors and turned backs, his rejection by his "own townspeople" must be taking its toll - those are the very people he'd so passionately wanted to save!

So I hope all our signatures can give him at least a momentary psychological boost, a moment of human warmth? In this "paese di merda" - land of squallid compromise crowded pizzerias splendid skies elastic consciences mutual-backscratching endless backbiting overwhelming monuments mindless TV gorgeous clothes and instinctive hurry-along-mind-your-own-business eye-aversion reflexes whenever there's a whiff of deadliness in the air - Saviano's our standard-bearer, our last-residual-hope-and-pride: he represents what we-collectively aren't but know we potentially could be - if we still had enough guts lucidity pride passion and belief in ourselves to at least envisage the possibility of building ourselves a future less ignominious than our present... :-(

"Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami

by eternalcityblues (parvati_roma aaaat libero.it) on Mon Oct 20th, 2008 at 07:27:41 PM EST

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (none / 1)

His hands are incredibly eloquent, as are his words.
Thanks.

Grabbing what you can, as John Ruskin said, isn't any less wicked when you grab it with the power of your brains than with the power of your fists.

by geezer in Paris (risico at wanadoo(flypoop)fr) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 03:35:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Sign for Roberto Saviano (4.00 / 2)

Thank you, eternalcityblues, and nice to see you here!

Thank you, de Gondi.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

by metavision on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 12:19:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Sign for Roberto Saviano- with update | 17 comments (17 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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