Verna: the Journalists’ Order relies on Ossigeno

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The president’s speech on the 22^nd November 2019 in Bari at the Mediterranean Journalists Forum (watch here the video)

“Regarding male and female threatened journalists we rely fully on the action of Ossigeno, which is an effective, timely action, which has the advantage of not seeking the spotlight, because it is pro-active. And it is the only action which can act as a reference.

Alberto Spampinato told us about 399 journalists were threatened this year, an average of over one threatened journalist per day. If I had to deal with a threatened colleague every day, I would not be able to do anything else.

However, it is clear that sometimes I myself have to deal with it directly, for example when there is a qualitative leap, such as the attempted attack on Mario De Michele, when a pistol was fired at body height. In a case like this, the president of the Order of Journalists quits all other jobs, neglects all other activities and runs to the prosecutor’s office to try to embrace his colleague. I did this, but in this particular case I did not arrive in time. He had already been taken away by the police in charge of protecting him since the formal police escort had not yet been assigned. In this situation I also had the opportunity to defend in some way the fellow journalists who had gone there to report and had filmed the car as it was leaving.

It is clear that those who, like me, are involved in doing many things, must place their trust in the trustworthy. And so I thank Alberto Spampinato, Peppino Mennella and the entire Ossigeno organization for what they do.

We of the Order of Journalists constantly refer to them for all these things.

With Ossigeno we are also working on the issue of the fight against “reckless lawsuits”, through the draft legislation provided by Primo Di Nicola’s bill, which in truth affects above all the civil trial process. It is a very simple, succinct, but important law. As Alberto Spampinato says, it is the litmus test that will tell us what the Italian Parliament’s attitude really is on these problems “.

ASP