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Wednesday 23 May RNW - NEWS, ANALYSIS AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION IN 10 LANGUAGES, WORLDWIDE 24/7 ON RADIO, TV AND ONLINE

Thousands demonstrate against Berlusconi

Published on 3 October 2009 - 10:48pm
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In Italy, thousands of people have taken to the streets of 13 cities to demonstrate for freedom of the press. In the capital Rome, organisers say 100,000 people demonstrated.

The protests were organised by journalists’ unions worried about the influence of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the media. They say it is becoming increasingly difficult to criticise Mr Berlusconi because he is not only the owner of Italy’s most important commercial broadcasters but, as prime minister, he also controls the country’s public broadcasting companies.

Newspapers that show him in a bad light are frequently hit by claims for damages that often run into millions of euros. Such a claim for damages against the former communist party newspaper is threatening it with bankruptcy.

Mr Berlusconi has called the protests “a farce”.

 

Photo of Silvio Berlusconi by Downing Street (flickr)

  • Photo of Silvio Berlusconi by Downing Street (flickr)

Discussion

Anonymous 13 October 2009 - 9:53am
Berlusconi billed the recently held rally in Rome in defence of press freedom, "a farce": his lawyers' claims during the trial when he was stripped of his immunity that he is "equal before the law but the application is another matter" smacks equally of an enormous farce in itself. Taking into account that the "application" of Gelli's "democratic recovery plan" devised more than thirty years ago by his masonic lodge filled with nostalgic members of the former Fascist Party - converged within the Berlusconi's coalition, are now well aware of their own influence over the magistrature and media, enacted once again a spectacle for the benefit of Tv cameras interpreting the decadence the entire country finds itself embroiled in. The trial looked like Italian pageantry and showmanship at its best, a throw back to the most refined thespian art, with the PM as the main tragic character. The outcome has decreed his public image came out more and more dented before the whole world...the "Emperor" knows extremely well his prima donna role, inevitably catastrophic.

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