by de Gondi
Mon Aug 31st, 2009 at 07:54:16 AM EST
Silvio Berlusconi has sued la Repubblica for having mounted a defamatory campaign against his person. The lawsuit focuses on the 10 + 10 questions that la Repubblica publishes daily for the past two months, alleging that they are rhetorical questions designed to induce false impressions of guilt in the reader. Berlusconi declares that the entire campaign is based on falsehoods, a claim that can easily be discounted by simply reading the twenty questions- or reading the foreign press.
The initiative has brought nearly unanimous outrage, often colourfully ironic, by opposition and civic leaders. A petition by three of Italy's most prominent jurists stigmatizes the action as a grave attack on the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They further call attention to the fact that Berlusconi's suit is being ignored by Italy's media and regret that lawyers and judges would have ever gone to such lengths to give a legal veneer to a blatantly arbitrary act. The petition now on line has gathered well over 16000 signatures in hardly three hours.
Feel free to adhere.
from the diaries with minor edit - Nomad
The initiative has brought nearly unanimous outrage, often colourfully ironic, by opposition and civic leaders. A petition by three of Italy's most prominent jurists stigmatizes the action as a grave attack on the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They further call attention to the fact that Berlusconi's suit is being ignored by Italy's media and regret that lawyers and judges would have ever gone to such lengths to give a legal veneer to a blatantly arbitrary act. The petition now on line has gathered well over 16000 signatures in hardly three hours.
Feel free to adhere.
Alan Rusbridger, director of The Guardian, reacted by pointing out that newspapers exist to ask questions and that similar action by a prime minister elsewhere would be unimaginable. He hoped that newspapers throughout the world would follow this new event with great attention.
Matters today are not going too well on the Vatican front for Mr. Berlusconi. Silvio had sought to organize a media event in which he would pass under a door in the cathedral of Aquila today, the 29th, so as to receive plenary indulgence for his conduct. (See John Hooper in The Guardian, "Indulging Berlusconi".) The picture opportunity would also have spared him from bluntly admitting misconduct or actually having "sinned" according to Catholic creed. His gossip magazine spread was programmed to include a dinner with the powerful Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcissio Bertone.
Apparently Berlusconi's scarce esteem for the critical faculties of Catholics was not appreciated by the Vatican which cancelled the dinner. After all, it was the first time an Italian Council President had deigned to attend the event, usually reserved for local authorities. The government reacted by delegating representation to Gianni Letta, Berlusconi's frockless Richelieu. A dispatch added that the decision had been made "to avoid manipulation" presumably by malicious and envious parties- a classic remark by a consummate manipulator.
Tension between the Vatican and the government is further exasperated by the Italian bishops' press campaign against Berlusconi's behaviour. Berlusconi's house organ, Il Giornale, reacted by launching a brutal attack on the Vatican paper, L'Avvenire, asserting that the Director Dino Boffo has skeletons in his closet. In tune with Berlusconi's drive to totally muffle what remains of the free press, radical pasdarans have been appointed to key positions these past months. The new director of Il Giornale, Vittorio Feltri, is renowned for his viciousness, but giving him free reign may blow up in Silvio's hands- just as his ill-conceived "plenary indulgence" scam and his ridiculous lawsuit.
